Philosopher Kings

image borrowed from bing

Philosopher Kings

“I would like to live as a poor man

with lots of money.”--Pablo Picasso

Woke up weary this morning

with Beat It banging in my head,

nightmarish Halloween images of Michael

moonwalking, crotch-grabbing, his Borselino

pulled low over his mascaraed eyes,

his nose hanging broken to one side, 

a damaged soul genius probable-pedophile

who slept in coffins, kept several llamas

in his living room, whom I think paid someone

to give birth to his prodigy pets, conceived

no doubt with a spangled turkey baster

loaded with his fresh spank-bank spunk,

forever draped in fake military finery, those

red sashes heavy with bogus golden medals,

and those goddamn Ghadaffi epaulettes

beefing up his pale bony shoulders,

sure, sure, just

blame it on his father, old weird Joe,

blame it on the Catholic Church

who still deny the buggerings of the past,

blame it on the rogue Mormons, forcing

sexual advances on their harem of 12 year olds, 

blame it squarely on the snake-like trunks

of the Republicans letting George W. perch

atop his Texas barn like a lunatic weather vane,

taking pot shots at torrents of tourists

who want to see with their own non-digital sight-- 

mechanisms a living example of American Fascism,

some of which want to see Junior twisting black

on a barbeque spit with Greeks and Mexicans

arguing over who gets to eat his evil eyes,

blame it on the bearded zealous followers

of Islam, who have twisted America

into a carnival fear festival, robbing us

of the old joy of flying, of being able to

meet our sweethearts at the gate

with open arms and hearts,

stealing our dignity,

               our shoes,

               our patience,

               our liberty

               our wages,

blame the slimy industrialists, 

sitting like Scrooge McDuck

in their vast mink-lined vaults

counting their callous cash

one thousand dollar bill at a time

with bevies of naked women dancing

seductively while spoon feeding them

Ben & Jerry’s on real silverware,

watching the specter of 5 buck gas,

dash through their stations like insane streakers,

just giving us a sour taste, 

a drive through molestation,

before pushing the costs below 4 bucks, making us

so very grateful, 

so confused,

so exhausted

so disenchanted

that some of us might vote Republican

enabling the mercs of Blackwater

and Haliburton to jack live loads

into their smoking barrels, eager

to plant bloody boots on the ground

somewhere in the Middle East, Latin America,

Mexico, Asia, Africa, the Gulf Coast,

any place where crude oil wells are pumping,

where overloaded tankers run heavy and low

in our turbulent times, 

where off shore oil rigs provide them

with excesses to cache, to hoard,

to trickle out arrogantly complete with

pestering price tags that fluctuate hourly,

blame it on the Corn lobby, on Ethanol 

that pollutes petroleum to the point

where our small engines cannot process it,

giving us the gift of 

corn-sludge in our carburetors, 

blame it on Global Warming,

on that hybrid morphidite bitch

that Nature has become, 

whelping super storms,

mating hurricanes to Nor’easters,

cutting a thousand mile swath of destruction,

flooding, blizzards, high winds and devastation,

blame it on the pithy politicians, venerable dictators,

and Tammany Hall oligarchists who

brazenly manipulate the media, spinning

tragedy into That’s Entertainment, pushing

microphones into the weeping faces

of surviving family members, descending

like larcenous locusts on 

every conflict,

every storm,

every homicide,

or just be straight up, no bullshitting, no spinning,

no truth-bending, no instant replay fact checking,

and blame ourselves for Christ’s sake,

face the painful fact that we will always

reap what we sow. 

Glenn Buttkus

November 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

Would  you like to hear the author read this postmodern poem to you?