Boobie Susceptibility to Word Magic
(from Fernando Po, U.S.A., America's post-literate retreat to Plato's Cave)

The Boobies of the U.S.A.
Like Boobies everywhere
Lend magical significance
To noises in the air:
Those mere sonic vibrations that
Intimidate and scare

This fact is never lost upon
The fascists who delight
In fanning flames of ignorance
And generating fright
With just a whispered "boo" spoke in
The darkness of the night

This makes the Boobie Democrats
So easy to unhinge
Confronted with an unkind word
They hunker down and cringe
Which sets the right-wing goons off on
Another hateful binge

As Munich taught us long ago
You cannot compromise
With fascist appetites that know
No limit to their size
A fact that weak democracies
Tend not to realize

Yet fascism comes not at once
But takes time to appear
Long years of preparation lie
Behind the bogus fear
Before it rots the brain its lies
Must enter in the ear

So fascists set about the task
Of breeding hapless herds
That stampede at the slightest sound
Of siren singing turds
Who lie in perfect harmony:
In octaves, fifths, and thirds

Most people with an ounce of spine
(unlike the frightened birds)
Need sticks and stones to break their bones
But Boobies just need words
Like "Sunnis" or like "Muslims" or
Like "Shiites" or like "Kurds"

It doesn't even matter if
The words make any sense
In fact, the less the better what
With Boobie minds so dense
That cannot now discriminate
The past from present tense

"I'm so like, 'hot'," we hear it said
By Boobie Barbie Doll
Who tells her friends of her last trip
Down to the shopping mall
To buy a porno webcam for
Her bathroom toilet stall

"I'm so 'way cool'," the fanboy crows
About his comic books
Wherein a Batman bashes lots
Of super-villain crooks
While folks pass by the maimed G.I.
And no one even looks

"But we're at war!" our leaders bray,
"And all must play their part!"
So just make sure you overfill
Your brimming shopping cart,
And leave no credit card uncharged
Lest we forget the art

And do not fail to buy more of
Those yellow magnet strips
That show how you "support the troops"
And all their blood that drips
While you craft empty slogans bland
And spout them from your lips

How easy fascist lives can get
When all they have to do
Is blow some smoke into your face
No matter how untrue
(About brainwashing Boobies they
Sure know a thing or two)

It takes no creativity
It hardly takes a thought
To nail you like a dazzled deer
Within the headlights caught
Just coin a neologism
And you'll buy what you ought

You've played their game so long that they've
Grown lazy from the ease
With which a pair of syllables
Can cause you all to freeze:
Some "centrist" Democrats adrift
In your own hot air breeze

They've made a cottage industry
Of running from the blame
But you'll just let them off the hook
If they call you a name
You cannot really fault them for
Considering you tame

The president's Rasputin Rove
Has once again come through:
His pudgy face and double chin
Have struck dumb fear in you
So now you trot out Evan Bayh
To bad mouth his own view

You make up sad excuses both
So lengthy and so lame
For running from us "liberals"
Who proudly keep the flame
Live down the libel, if you dare,
Or live up to our name

Republicans have shot their wad
And wandered off the path
They read their Fortune magazines
And seethe in righteous wrath
Till mommy calls out "time for bed"
And draws their nightly bath

Too bad their rubber duck has drowned
But mommy hears their cries
And comes on call to gently wipe
The soap out of their eyes
With fresh pajamas, too, now cleaned
Of grease from "freedom fries"

The cakewalk war has dragged along
And left Bush in a bind
What does he call a strife begun
Because he'd lost his mind?
(With G.I.s who've lost both their eyes
Condemned to lifetimes blind)

He launched this war at first, of course,
To fake an image strong
But then he screwed the pooch so bad
He wound up looking wrong
He once called it "accomplished" now
He only calls it "long"

Another sprint has turned into
A journey without end
A mindless marathon without
A way to fix or mend
Which Bush cannot conclude due to
The message it would send

For peace would bring a summing up;
A tally of the cost
To weigh against an empty dream
The treasure that we've lost
Our blood and lives and money froze
Beneath Forever's frost

A chest which does not rise or fall;
A heart which does not beat;
A missing breath; a mirthless smile;
A body without heat:
A life at last confronted with
A death it cannot cheat.

Wide eyes that stare off into space
And yet which cannot see
A soul passed now beyond this world
Into eternity
A grim reminder of Death's work
From which we cannot flee

No one comes back who's gone that way.
On that we can agree.
So here's a name that you should learn:
It's called "finality."
Once chance has passed, we cannot know
What those lost lives could be.

No bargains with death can we strike;
No deals to buy more time.
We'll have to pay the piper now
For singing his mad rhyme,
Or else we'll never live to know
A quiet peace sublime.

But anyway the time has come,
Or so the Walrus said,
To speak of shoes and sealing wax,
And boiling seas ahead;
And truth about a moron king
With cabbage for his head.