Exit Stage Right

The Nation of Sheep went on bleating
Contentedly taking their beating
While those they elected kept cheating
In thrall to corruption and theft

Their Maximum Leader kept braying
The noises that he went on saying
A dead horse he would not stop flaying
Until the corpse got up and left

No thoughts were exchanged at the meetings
But only hand signals as greetings
Designed to be only repeatings
Of empty hot blasts of thin air

One man took the country to battle
Equipped with his shiny new rattle
Stampeding the somnolent cattle
Who went to their doom unaware

One couldn't envision a better
Conditioned flock needing no fetter
Programmed to obey to the letter
Whatever their TV set said

The sound and the pictures kept flashing
So fast that it sent their brains crashing
Till armies deployed to go bashing
Some foreigners till they were dead

Since none had a name for the madness
They called it ethereal gladness
Which sold them on their macho badness
Until someone noticed the cost

It seems that the bank vault was looted
While they their high praise loudly tooted
Then somehow their software rebooted
Which left them alone, broke, and lost

The Fate Driven Herd went on lowing
Content to keep shrinking not growing
Their children’s inheritance blowing
While they chewed their credit card cud

The soldiers came home to no kissing
Because of the body parts missing
Great Leader thus heard a loud hissing
As his poor performance went “thud!”