Saturday, August 4, 2012

Happy Birthday, O Dear Leader, Year Four

“Nero and the burning of Rome” by M. de Lipman. (1897)
Happy Birthday, O Dear Leader,
Year Four
One more last time,
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.

Thus Marxist “True Believers”

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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