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

He picked himself Vice President
Because he realized
That his appealing qualities
Were few and compromised
Yet working through an empty suit
Could gain him what he prized

He knew the shallow Texas twerp
Could fill a needed niche
At college he had learned the way
To party with the rich
His skull-and-bones connections, then,
Could scratch a certain itch

The studly Texas hamster asked
For Dick to come help out
And find the Shrub a running mate
With some substantial clout
To compensate for weaknesses
George Bush could not but flout

And so they formed a team of sorts
To try and rig the game
Old Dick supplied the thinking and
Young George supplied the name
Who knew that in a year or two
They'd set the world aflame?

It seems that Dick had not resolved
Some issues from his past
And thought somehow that presidents
Should set out to recast
The Constitution's balances
So they could never last

The President, he theorized,
Should have himself a war
Against a nebulosity
As distant as a star:
A threat as incorporeal
As spirits always are

A Manichean Evil One
Eternal and profound
Requiring equal vigilance
Just not here on the ground
But always in a future time
Where nightmare ghosts abound

This threat is always "gathering"
Although not here right now
Just over the horizon where
We'll find it anyhow
And if we don't, we'll just provoke
Someone to start a row

This mystic dread, though, has a way
Of burning men like fuel
As Dick and George discovered when
Their wars turned mean and cruel
Devouring and digesting troops
Like ogres eating gruel

Their plan had called for something else
A scam to make some hay
A scheme to rob the future now
To make the present pay
A pleasant cakewalk conquest dream
Financed a funny way

The dollars are; the army is;
The stuff just manifests
Appearing out of nowhere when
The President requests
And anyway those Muslim lands
Will have us as their guests

They'll pay for their own plundering
They'll pay us to rebuild
They'll pump their oil out of the ground
Until our tanks are filled
Then thank us for the civil war
And all their kin we've killed

It's all worked out quite well so far
As months stretch into years
And all the glib assurances
Dissolve in seas of tears
As empty as the vacuum space
Between George Bush's ears

This partnership pathology;
This tag-team turkey pair
Has screwed the pooch so thoroughly
It seems no longer fair
To entertain the hope that there's
No worse thing they might dare

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2006