
Year Four
I'm not kneeling
With our Dear Leader's birthday,
something's slightly off this year:
making the songs more heartfelt,
the festivities more cheer,
the well wishes more earnest,
the extravagance less spare,
as the far fewer guests force
smiles wide to mask the fear.
Once staunch allies, now absent
all claim distance from the seat,
of him they called messiah
of, by, for their class elite,
and though they push his platform,
share his famed scorched earth conceit,
to save themselves and Party
they'll lay all ruin at his feet.
always must their truth conceal,
abandon their Dear Leaders
when results become too real,
damn the “misapplication”
and again grant Marx appeal,
claim next time will be diff'rent,
next time they'll make all men kneel.
But you as our Allende
did not build alone this bile,
claim The People as chattel,
seek to render us servile.
So for your birthday, Barry,
I stand witness to their guile,
so you might not stand solo
should there be a treason trial.
It's four years now I've written
of the whole heartbreaking view:
your lies, your propaganda,
things you say, and things you do.
So, one more last time as your
Poet Laureate askew:
Happy Birthday, O Dear Leader,
I'll not kneel to such as you.
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