1.
Half of what I know, I do not know—
And half the time I don’t know
Which is which.
Truth is a bandit, Truth is a screech-owl
And the polar winds are howling.
Solar flares and the weather vane cuckoo,
We click out a mordant Morse Code
About Liberty, and God, and our free will.
2.
Baby boomers are booming out;
We’ll peter away with a whimper.
With money to burn, we burned it all
While California-dreaming.
Now we’re beggars in our children’s houses.
(Except for the rapists selected to lead us,
Grinning from ear to ear,
Serrating our warbling throats.)
3.
70 million in two world wars
Went to their graves mis-believing.
They died for rumors of rumors of war,
Allegations of allegations,
Cloth banners in the charnel house of hate,
While the power and glory mongers
Pulled the grenade pins, raked in the dough,
Built bone temples of severed limbs
In which we continue to worship.
4.
A savage race, a servile kind,
Shaken by hysterias.
The barn is on fire.
The horses are screaming.