Messianic Maniac
(From The Triumph of Strife: an homage to Dante Alighieri and Percy Shelley)

A dangerous Diogenes dumbed down
Went searching streets to find dishonest men
The only kind who’d work for such a clown

Who couldn’t tell a rooster from a hen
A man grown used to getting what he wants
Who couldn’t tell a pencil from a pen

Each form of fawning flattery he flaunts
And calls “disloyal” any sane advice
Both enemies and friends he rudely taunts

He dreamed he’d deal in fire and not in ice
But shot and missed because he hadn’t aimed
So now his soldiers pay a heavy price

The passion of a pissed-off Christ he claimed
To justify the ones he’d killed and maimed

With teaspoons of testosterone untapped
He dressed in Top-Gun drag to crow “we won!”
But since we hadn’t, soon his pants he crapped

As then his mice-laid plans came all undone
His unforced errors in a game of chess
Revealed the tangled web that he had spun

A checkers player prone to make a mess
Of any simple zombie task undead
Like mumbling through a radio address

A vapid vacuum from which judgment fled
Assembling too few men aboard his ships
He rushed in where a fool alone would tread

With snide remarks and acid, cutting quips
His florid face then launched a thousand slips