Monday, April 23, 2007

For Whom the Moving Finger Writes

Omar Khayyam said something much, I think:
Who from iambic couplets did not shrink
To say in verse that each relates to all
As all relates to those of us who crawl
Beneath that huge inverted dome of sky
Which rolls, indifferent to you and I;
Which writes with moving finger and moves on
From twilight through the dark until the dawn
Regarless of what piety or wit
We beg to live again a word of it
Nor with our tears wash out a single line:
The poem of our past we can't refine

John Donne wrote also of a clod of earth
From off a continent defined at birth:
An island in itself, as is no man
Who yet connects to all the human clan
So that which we of others would compel
Ourselves must suffer and endure as well
For we and they can not identify
A reason why yet one more soul should die
To mark with tolling bells its passage plus
The knowledge that its passing lessens us

So let us not ask what fate's finger writes
For it but chronicles our pointless fights

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Saturday, April 21, 2007

This Time for Sure!

Oh, well. I might as well place this here as any place else. As the "surging" magician Bullwinkle Moose repeatedly promised Rocky the Flying Squirrel each time he failed to pull a rabbit out of his hat:

"This Time for Sure!"

See him as he spits and splutters
Hear him as he tries to speak
None can parse the noise he utters
Most just think him lame and weak

See him flail about and flutter
Grasping at each passing straw
Drowning in his sewer gutter
Going down in shock and awe

Calling for a czar to salvage
Failure. No one? Change the name!
Now solicit one to "manage"
"Execution" of the blame

Magic phrases are not working
Far too many now we've heard
Still his own chain he keeps jerking
Looking only more absurd

See him glower; see him threaten
Hear the hippies laugh and sing
How can this vain Texas cretin
Hope to frighten any thing?

I know what: let's blame Jane Fonda!
How about we take a poll?
Blame Mercedes or blame Honda!
Our own virtues, let's extol

Let's impregnate Gail and Trisha
Let's shout "We are number One!"
Let's "bear arms" in our militia
Let's sell crazy kids a gun

Whoopee! Ain't this empire crumbling?
Haven't we made one fine mess?
Still, who dares decry our bumbling?
Who expects us to confess?

Think of Cheney in his bunker
Knock on Dubya's wooden head
See Alberto cringe and hunker:
Can't recall a thing he said

Thus spake Bullwinkle, the genie,
Cartoon prophet; antlered freak:
"Teeny Weenie Chili Beanie!
Spirits are about to speak!"

Now you see our situation
If you understand at all
Wonder not then that our nation
Had a choice and chose to fall


Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Friday, April 20, 2007

Boobie Mirror on the Stall

He looked into the mirror and
Saw what he wished to see
"You studly man!" the mirror purred,
"You take the breath from me!
Now open up your rancid mouth
So I can take a pee."

"I'll gladly be your toilet, glass,"
The deadbeat Dubya groaned,
"If you'll get all those Chinese to
Forgive what they have loaned:
The IOUs I wrote them while
I begged and cried and moaned

For money to finance my wars
On easy credit lines
With compound interest adding up,
Plus those late payment fines
That other people's kids will pay
For my free-lunch designs."

"No way!" the shiny surface gleamed
In its reflective eyes
"You've shot you country's wad and now
You want to peddle lies?
Bend over and let Steely Dan
Give you his dull surprise."

And so the conversation goes,
With Dubya doubling down
Each time he screws the pooch again
He auctions off a town
And lays more debt upon the kids
Which someday them will drown

Dick Cheney tells him, "Go ahead,
No one will ever know!
If we just keep repeating lies
Away the press will go
Since they don't mind the lies as long
As profit they can show."

So, trickle, dribble, surge, and "splat!"
They've fallen on their face
Disgusting not just their own land
But all the human race
How come no Caesar wants to come
To save them from disgrace?

George tried "commanding" once or twice
But found it way too hard
He thought of playing poker but
He didn't have a card
He added up three feet but found
He couldn't get a yard

He had some custom threads made up
In which he liked to dress
"All Military," so he thought,
And likely to impress
A hapless foreign country that
He'd left in great distress

He thought he'd "shock and awe" some folks
By blowing up their land
Then when his vaunted legions failed
He loudly called them grand
And his retarded generals
Got no due reprimand

He started at the finish line
And then reversed his gears
To lose more ground with each new day
'Till after four long years
He wound up at the starting gate
Reduced to crying tears

His "mission" he "accomplished," then
He thought about those terms:
What did they mean to one whose brain
Contained so many germs?
Why did he open up, in fact,
That lethal can of worms?

Thus, questions, questions, everywhere
But no time left to think
Of anything but exits out
Through which the perps might slink
With no one at the Pequod's helm
As it swirls down the drink

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Mad Dog John McCain Bombs Again

Get a life, John McCain: Now. Tonight.
We're so sick of you and all your slogans trite
Face it: you lost back in 'Nam
So you'll never sell your scam
That if given one more chance you'll do it right

You couldn't fly a plane to save your ass
Now you want to peddle jokes of bombing crass
Seems your time spent in the clink
Never caused you much to think
Of the people down below whom you would gas

Not a pretty sight, your abject lack of grace
Seems some stitches you should once again replace
Then each time you kiss the bum
Of some vicious right-wing scum
You'll get less shit on your sagging, lifted face

Don't you know when you're not wanted, John McCain?
Have you no conception of the grief and pain
That your hero George has wrought
Even though he never fought
In the war that you forgot for your own gain?

Why on earth do you suppose that we would choose
Such a reckless fool as you to light the fuse
Of another needless crime
That you'd start to pass the time
Just until you show another way to lose?

Oh, I hope you get that nomination soon
Then your party can collapse into a swoon
From the stench that fills the air
Of that albatross you wear
Dead as your career: a clueless, crude cartoon

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Polling the One-Legged Proles

Back in early 2003, a majority of Americans thought it just wonderful that we should kick the living shit out of Iraq, simply because we wanted to at the time and thought we could. Four years later, a majority of Americans now don't think this shit-kicking stuff has worked out so well since it turned out we only had one leg to stand on and kick the Iraqi people at the same time. Still, though, another majority of Americans still can't decide whether or not continuing to "win" this one-legged ass-kicking contest makes less sense than "losing" it as quickly as humanly possible. Hence:

"Polling the One-Legged Proles"

You ask them if they like 'good' and they tell you that they do;
You say: "You hate 'bad,' don't you?" and they answer: "That is true;"
From all of which we gather what? That one plus one is two?

Majorities, we learn, like wars that sound like lots of fun,
And more than half will always say we shouldn't "cut and run"
No matter if we die while shouting: "We are number one!"

The old vox populi gives voice to popular content
With knowing not the names of thieves or where the money went;
Nor even why we haven't hanged the "leaders" we resent.

They lie and steal with such panache that words cannot but fail
To conjur up the essence of their victims' plaintive wail,
And yet they walk free on the earth when they should rot in jail.

Our Romanovs and their Rasputins say we need a "czar"
Because we cannot rule ourselves and don't know who we are.
Our rulers scoff at serfs like us whom they find too bizarre.

So ask us if we like our lot, and we will say: "And how!"
We wouldn't want to disagree with "liking," would we now?
So just imply a "positive" and we'll take up the plow.

Our "goodness" we assume as fact implicit in the word
As if agreeing with ourselves - the bovine, driven herd -
Somehow makes our conformity the least bit less absurd

And so if we should take a poll, we'll find a total lack
Of any evidence that we are other than a pack
Who answer "yes" or "no" on cue, and yet who don't know Jack.


Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Sunday, April 15, 2007

An Ersatz Commander in Knickers

Just following up on one of Woeful World's many bizarre exhibitions:

"An Ersatz Commander in Knickers"

Before a mirror now she stands
Saluting with her two left hands
"Commanding" like some jaded Joan of Arc
A warfare welfare mother slick
Another monkey on a stick
She gladly held the match that lit the spark

She clearly failed to look and see
The dwarf dyslexic chimanzee
Who made baboons of her and Bubba Bill
Attacking those upon the left
Who saw through Dubya's lack of heft
She now sounds less a leader than a shill

In thrall to medals on the chest
Not nearly brightest nor the best
She signed off on a jingoistic jaunt
No judgment did she bring to bear
Emitting only heated air
Her bad decisions have returned to haunt

And now with knickers in a bunch
She lives to rue the fateful hunch
She followed on her first blind date with war
It seemed like such a little thing:
A rapt submission to a fling
That's left her used again like Dubya's whore

Yet unrepentant at the ease
Which which war caused her brain to freeze
Our You-Know-Her wants us to make her queen
She's got this urge to have a go,
She'd like us all to truly know,
In spite of all that we have heard and seen

She now says she would like to fight
And not just pander to the right
She says the middle finger them she'll give
But calculating cons and pros
She tallies up the "yea"s and "no"s
And then displays a pinky as her shiv

It simply doesn't seem to work
This "centrist" mush served by a jerk
Who likes the times that buy mens' souls just fine
For having sold her own soul cheap
She now can utter not a peep
When voters choose someone more genuine

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Woeful World

Welcome to the World of Woeful
Greetings from the dirt and death
Stay awhile and savor slaughter
Exhale now your final breath

Hear the lies like lurid laughter
Sparkling poison comedy
See the snake-oil salesmen slurring
Pitches for their "remedy"

Pay no heed to bloody bungles
Never once demand to know
Why we still employ the vapid
Expectations set so low

Reach should not exceed the grasping
Crony crooks who count their sums
None should wonder at the wicked
Something that now this way comes

Karma works through all intentions
Bad ones drive the good ones out
So it comes as no surprise when
Ruptured ducklings start to pout

Not the rapture long envisioned
By the ones now left behind
Voting in the kind that robbed them
Hasn't cured the addled mind

Now betrayed by honest trifles
Factoids joined beneath the ken
Down where lizard language festers
Atavism conquers men

Swayed by dark emotion rampant
Arguing from ignorance
Proving fallacies by dictum
Sophistry beguiles the dunce

No defense through education
Chartered homeschools dummy down
Uncle Jim-Bob's paranoia:
City slickers come to town

Back through centuries of struggle
Abstract danger always near
Like Caligula on steroids:
Let them hate, just so they fear

Going backwards from prevailing
Onward to beginning soon
To the rear advancing daily
Losing Mars to gain the Moon

Two legs bad and four legs better
Animals all equal now
Pigs and men conspire at cheating
One another any how

Hope abandoned here on entrance
You who would not read the sign
Falsehoods you have swallowed freely
Truth you've chosen to malign

Now you've got what you had coming
What the duped so often get
Ripped off by the reigning monarch
"Winnings" from a lousy bet

Glad to have you join the party
Here no exit will you find
Woeful World indeed you've purchased
With this contract you have signed

Didn't read the fine print, did you?
Mephistopheles feels proud
Once again his whispered promise
Vanished in a bloody cloud

Iraq-Nam now has you stymied
Having done the dumb deed twice
Seems you thought the dry and damp heat
Had some bearing on your vice

You won't look into the mirror
You project your ebbs and flows
Others who are not your problem
Can't save you from what you chose

If we want to stop, we'll do it
Otherwise we'll stumble on
Wrecking both ourselves and them who
Will not play our puppet pawn

World of Woeful, what a wonder!
Who but we would waste away
Life and prospects for the future
Now, in our own blind today?

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

A Disowned Heir Transparent

You pose some interrogatives
About the waste of life
That our vain cretin leaders spend
Fomenting needless strife
To further their own prospects for
Advancement in this life

In answer to your questions, I
Have only this to add:
That we must send more youth to die
In service to a cad
Because if we do not he will
Get really, really mad

You see, it matters very much
That this vain man should feel
Empowered by position and
Entitlement to steal
Since all his life George never had
One clear thought to reveal

And now his erstwhile heir assumes
That he can do the same:
Just pose and make up flimsy lies
In search of cheesy fame
Ignoring what the people want
And sloughing off the blame

No matter, John McCain exhorts:
He's just himself to hear
This two-bit twerp Napoleon
Has nothing much to fear,
He says, from voters poised to toss
Him out upon his ear

He's conjured up an image stern
That he thinks kings project
While undeceived, the public sees
The drug that they inject
Into their naked scrawny butts
That they strive to protect

The generals can't save them now
Nor can the troops that bleed
For George and John ignored advice,
Refusing to pay heed,
In their lust to "command" a war
Two countries do not need

So, yes, more young and old must die
If just to buy some time
For George and John to double down
And drop another dime
On those who see no miracle
In store to mask the crime

If they knew what to do, they would
Have done it long ago;
But since they didn't, thus they can't,
As most of us well know
Yet still they bluster blizzards of
Their bogus fog and snow

A one-trick dog-and-pony team,
The misfit and his heir
Have made a trademark of deceit
Invoking empty air
To witness their new martyr shirts
Made chiefly out of hair

So, by all means, let war go on
Lest if it should expire,
What would the mercenaries do;
Whom would Dick Cheney hire
To take the blame for George and John,
Two boys who play with fire?

This may not answer all you've asked
About the tragic dead
I only know that more seem doomed
Because all thought has fled
From George and John and Dick and those
With neither heart nor head

But now succession looms and John
Perceives his hour has come
To sit upon a worthless throne
That he sees as a plumb
Reserved for him alone but which
Is hardly worth a crumb

Since endless, pointless war accrues
No kudos for the king
Now John McCain will get to reap
The wages of a fling:
A disowned heir transparent to
Not much, if any thing

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Flailing Flounders Fail Again

The Flailing Flounders fail again
It's just that thing they do
They start a war where none should be
Then blame the ones they screw
Insisting that we all forget
The chances that they blew

For instance, one should never fight
In former colonies
Whose thirst for independence makes
Them very hard to please
With foreign occupation that
Just adds to their unease

Once freed from under foreign heels
The locals just can't stand
To have some armored men from Mars
Defiling their proud land
While shouting high-school English that
George Bush can't understand

And all those dogs of war in train
Who profit from the bone
That Dick and George have tossed at them
From their own doghouse throne
Cannot survive the daily drive
To IEDs now prone

Then, too, within the Green Zone walls
Where frightened puppets cow
And bombs go off on schedule with
No one who knows just how
It seems the "surge" has trickled down
To just a dribble now

Yet John McCain says "No Plan B,"
Which casts a mystic pall
Upon kept correspondents who
Would rather cringe and crawl
Before unmitigated crap
Designed to merely stall

For when no evidence of plans
From "A" to "Z" exists
Who cares what alphabet conceals
A crazy plot that twists
All logic out of shape and time
So that the crime persists?

So Mad Dog Bomber, John McCain,
Now finds himself adrift
In gale force winds from Dubya's gas
That John has too much sniffed:
A legacy of lunatics
That John sees as a gift

Therefore, insult to injury
Requires a Russian "czar"
A dictator to manage what
Republicans so far
Have left upon our once good name:
An ugly, livid scar

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Friday, April 13, 2007

Boobie Vindication by the Venal

The Boobies of the U.S.A.
Have done it once again
They’ve ginned up lies to fool themselves
And wasted many men
-- And women, too – and all because
They cannot count to ten

In fact, they cannot count at all
As we recall they said
That this war wouldn’t last six weeks
Yet four years now have fled
And left them mouthing adjectives
Like “more” and “long” instead

But even more astonishing:
They’ve figured out a way
To pass the buck in circles so
The liars still can play;
So Boobies stained by perfidy
Can lie another day

Their theory: in some future time
Someone will come along
To spout the words “We have prevailed”
Which then will end the song
With claims of “victory” by those
Who’ve always got it wrong

The Boobies simply can’t recall
That four long years ago
They heard those words, “We have prevailed”
From George who wouldn’t know
“Prevarication” from “prevailed”:
The sand he sells as snow

We hear it said at times that those
Who fight and die in war
Wish for the mayhem to go on
Exactly as before;
That blood flushed down the drain demands
That others bleed still more

Some say they hear dead friends demand
More death as weird amends
For useless squandering of life
In war that never ends
Yet who acquainted with such swill
Would call its drinkers friends?

Just dupes of statesmen treacherous
And tools of conquerors
Vain fools who swallow bogus lies
From those who think them whores
(No better than the Temps who cook
Their food and sweep their floors)

You cannot do a wrong thing right
But still the wrong will try
And claim at each new failure that
More people have to die
As "vindication" for the ones
Who suffered for a lie

But lies by definition have
No truth on which to build
But only lead straight down the slope
To get more people killed
And not the promised cakewalk romp
Originally billed

Still those invested in the lie
Somehow cannot confront
The awful fact that they have been
Bamboozled by a runt
Who ran a "dive" on fourth-and-long
When smarter teams would punt

Commanded by an empty suit
Whom they have sworn to serve
The Boobies cannot change their course
And from disaster swerve
Lest armchair fanboy fascists wail
And claim they have no nerve

The "good fight," so it’s called, we know
Means ruining two lands
Both ours and theirs to stimulate
Pubescent hormone glands
And sinews on some scrawny arms
As strong as rubber bands

Another name for what we know
As just the same deceit
This promised "victory" will come
As just one more defeat
As undisguised and noisome as
The crap some now repeat:

That if sufficient numbers die
That makes the lie come true
And if you balk at nonsense then
The blame belongs on you
And not the liars who conspire
To bleed the country blue

In six months, or "a Friedman," we
Will surely turn the tide
But going on nine "Friedman's" now
We've only more who've died
And still another general
Says we have not yet tried

You have to wonder, after all,
Why four years must ensue
Before our generals admit
They haven't got a clue
With learning curves that flat you'd think
The people ought to sue

And close down the academies,
War colleges and such
For having no curricula
That teaches very much;
Whose students need Jane Fonda as
Their alibi and crutch

And all those “fucking hippies” with
The flowers in their hair
Pose such a threat to fascists that
That the cops pollute the air
With tear gas while they beat folk to
Discourage thinking rare

Again, we hear that soldiers dead
Want yet more wasted life
Until such time as we "prevail"
In our elected strife
And have ourselves a swell parade
With bugle, drum, and fife

A "victory," we hear, would make
It all turn out O.K.
But absent such a "win"
We've got to fight another day
And still another after that
Until some judgment day

But judgment seems to just recede
As those who fail eschew
Establishing some "metrics" that
Would show the pooch they screw
Revealing them as nincompoops
With brains too bloody few

You see, the "thinking" goes like this:
That "honor" comes from "wins";
That he whose service "loses" gains
No honor from his sins
But he who "wins," upon his chest
A shiny medal pins

For trinkets such as these, some say,
More billions we must blow
As if we haven’t better use
For seeds that we should sow:
Our vanishing resources now
As scarce as hens that crow

But eating seed corn seems the way
For those who do not farm
But only dine on war’s rewards
And never come to harm
For whom the brass will step and fetch
And any thought disarm

But some of us who served before
Want none of this demise:
A sequel to a tragic farce
That needs no new reprise
To keep the fools employed who need
Some cutting down to size

For all their bloody bungling they
Need downsizing, and quick
Enough of all their bullshit and
Excuses lame and sick!
They’ve proven that in decades now
They haven’t thought a lick

A lack of any evidence
They simply can’t refuse
They call it “cherry picking” when
It’s lemons that they choose
The longer that we let them “lead”
The more for us they’ll lose

They only know to stall for time
Till miracles take place
Or someone else assumes the blame
For fascists who’ve lost face:
They hope we’ll drink their Kool-Aid and
All memory erase

But vindication never comes
From Boobie types who’ve bet
The nation’s wad on loaded dice
And haven’t won once yet
Dishonor only will they earn
Who reap what they beget

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Up Yours, John McCain!

Well, "Up Yours!" Mad Dog John McCain,
And what's that stench I smell?
Why could it be an albatross
That you wear like a bell:
A dead, decaying necklace that
Suits leper losers well?

I do hope that you keep it up
Attacking us who learned
In Southeast Asia lessons that
You've only ever spurned
An asinine amnesiac,
Your coming loss you've earned

That fetid, feathered bird you wear
So proudly on your chest
Sure ought to help you win two states
And that's about the best
That fools like you could hope to win
While losing all the rest

Just like a bomber pilot you
Just shit on those below
And never see the ground beneath
Where people you don't know
Look up and curse the vapor trail
From hot air that you blow

And do team up with Holy Joe
The Judas Lie-berman
Who trashes "his own party" for
The Faux News Murdoch clan
And Zionist Likudniks who
Promote the fascist plan

Each day we've lost two more GIs
Through years that number four
Now with your "surge" you've doubled that
With killed and maimed galore
Among Iraqis -- Afghans, too --
And still you cry for more!

You have no honor left to lose
You sold that long ago
For dreams of fighting 'Nam again
And just as badly, so
Your plans for poor Iraq amount
To nothing we don't know

You've nothing new to add of worth,
Just more of what we've had:
A litany of lies and death
And "leadership" so bad
That more of what you offer could
But make more widows sad

Please go away and save us all
The boredom of your screeds
We've seen and heard enough from George
And all his lousy deeds
We really do not care for you
And your pathetic needs

So "Up Yours!" Mad Dog John McCain,
And you can kiss my butt
Your stupid brain has slipped some gears
And left you in a rut
Espousing war that no one wants --
Except the senile nut

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

A Scapegoat on Horseback

The call has gone out for a Caesar to come
And rescue the fortunes of Dubya the Dumb
Whom even the dimwits consider too numb
To make the distinction between "to" and "from"


The Russians say "Czar" as their choice for the name;
The Germans say "Kaiser" and mean just the same;
But when the Republicans fail at the game
They call for a scapegoat to take all the blame


But soldiers on horseback with legions in train
Have never much cared for the fools they disdain
And rather than serve at the whims of the vain
Prefer to dispense with Democracy's pain


So crossing the Rubicon on his way home
Means only that Caesar wants no more to roam
The Empire for Dubya: an ignorant gnome.
So much for the former Republic of Rome


Yet given as bad as our generals are
Who've taken four years to get not very far
Even they know they've fucked up the Baghdad Bazaar
And would rather retire than pick up a fifth star


For what would it mean to "command" a defeat
That Dick Cheney runs from behind a boy's seat
Resulting in only more piles of dead meat
With some luckless scapegoat to take all the heat?


A scapegoat on horseback! Try thinking of that!
Who'll cross the Potomac to fry in the fat?
And all so that chicken hawks blind as a bat
Can stuff their fat faces like Garfield the cat


It doesn't look good for the oxygen thief:
A waste of good skin; a commander in brief
Who now once again demands free-lunch relief
For all that he's done to cause all so much grief


Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007