Gambler's Fallacy
(From The Triumph of Strife: an homage to Dante Alighieri and Percy Shelley)

No smaller man his office ever knew
No man less qualified sat in his chair
Through no head hollower did wind blow through

To make a whistling sound in empty air
No gambler ever bet more in a night
To risk his country’s future on a dare

Nor lost more on thin odds extremely slight
He wanted so some victory to taste
Yet never cared to wonder whom to fight

Upon a whim he acts in thoughtless haste
He flies around the world in his big plane
To show how best some energy to waste

Inflicting on the world’s supply a strain
He squanders treasure in a mad refrain.

Down to the bottom of the toilet bowl
He races headfirst with himself alone
To Newcastle he carries needless coal

And tea to China hoping for a loan.
Since his own country doesn’t save a dime,
He hopes that others throw his land a bone.

To save him asking us to fund his crime,
He fights his present wars on credit cards.
He’d rather tax the future any time.

This free-lunch fighter weaves his crude canards
To make official English meaningless
A worthless empty noise no use to bards

He makes with little talent quite a mess
Then takes the drainpipe down to even less

Into an ancient land with hatreds fierce
An army raced, commanded by a boy
Into whose mind no ray of light could pierce

Who played with foreign legions like a toy
Who thought someone had made of him a god
Whose brazen arrogance was hardly coy

In combination with an ego flawed
His birth atop the ladder of success
Somehow produced a lad who downward clawed

Exploiting on the way his nastiness
Expecting always rescue and relief
From failures engineered by haughtiness

He claimed to act from deeply held belief
Excusing an attention span too brief

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2006-2010