Sunday, December 03, 2006

The Hens Roared Upside Down

The five-deferment chicken hawk
Who couldn't graduate
The champagne flyboy too absolved
To make his monthly date
Two trophy chief executives
Who came to war too late

These three-piece-suit barbarians,
Attilas wearing ties,
With millions in their P. R. funds
To manufacture lies
Sent thousands to their early doom
Where few could hear their cries

You might as well give Genghis Khan
A haircut and a shave
And then expect this earthly scourge
To make nice and behave
As think that Bush and Cheney might
The lives of any save

Dick Cheney with his overbite
Into his armpit sneered
Denouncing Democrats who had
In uniform appeared
While Dick and his pet Bubble Boy
Had only profiteered

While Dick had other things to do:
"Priorities," said he,
Much better men heard country's call
And sailed across the sea
To fight against some mystic dread
So Dick and George could flee

But then the wheel came `round and gave
To Dick and George at last
A foolproof way to expurgate
The yellow from their past
They'd bash some Arab people not
Involved in terror's blast

They said they knew of weapons that
Saddam would not dispose
If we knew what they knew, they said,
We'd give Saddam the hose
Just trust in them, they said, or else
Our wife's job they'd disclose

When some asked for the proof they glared
And said they'd not debate
To any who had questions they
Said, "Hurry up and wait!
You'll get your answers soon enough,
But first swallow the bait."

They wanted all the credit for
The war that couldn't fail
In no-cost, cakewalk, record time
They'd all be hoisting ale
To toast their grandiose design
A tidbit of a tale

Let's do that Mongol thing, they thought,
And simply sack the place
Let's watch while priceless works of art
Take off without a trace
And have Don Rumsfeld blow it off
As "some kid with a vase"

But after years of mission creep
They're mired in Khyber Pass
They keep inventing rationales
That sound like passing gas
Their bait and switch has turned around
And bit them in the ass

So as the world turned upside down
The mid-east mouse, it roared
And out of soldiers' punctured veins
A bloody torrent poured
Inducing Dick and George to do
The thing they most adored

They posed unwavering before
The steady camera lens
They beamed unshaking images
Into home TV dens
And heralded the sundown like
A pair of crowing hens


Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005

1 Comments:

Blogger Michael Murry said...

Thanks, Helena, for the kind words. I'll continue to follow your suggestions as I experiment with getting this blog up to speed and with enough content to merit at least a casual reading.

7:45 PM  

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