When charismatic indecency carries the day
There’s not much comfort in the ancient cult
That says the dance of misrule always prances
At its one frantic ball—seems like forever
Until the music stops, the flags come down,
And ordinary corruption comes back, refreshed
In laughter. “Hitler has only got one ball.”
Misrule, ha ha.
I’m more at home in The Past, want though I may
To live in this lonesome place The Present Moment.
I share a stack of magazines with someone
Who reads the new ones from the top. The bottom,
Salted with gilded ephemera, outspent ads
And failing or faded fads, is just my meat.
Praying that I don’t blind myself to horrors
I study the Times online to behold the face
Of fascism and its disregarding hand.