When charismatic indecency carries the day
There’s not a lot consolation within the historic cult
That claims the dance of misrule all the time prances
At its one frantic ball—looks like without end
Till the music stops, the flags come down,
And unusual corruption comes again, refreshed
In laughter. “Hitler has solely obtained one ball.”
Misrule, ha ha. However inform it to the victims:
Thousands and thousands on the time and hundreds of thousands extra at the moment
And everybody ever since, without end, a sufferer?
Lengthy-ago bumper sticker, my naive, glib
Coronary heart in the correct place: Resist Authority.
The charismatic indecency that carries
The day this yr this time is just not the antic
Indecency of Harpo with scissors to snip
My necktie if I’m Simon the Pharisee
Who invited Jesus to supper, when Jesus favored
The sinner who introduced costly fragrance to scrub
His toes—and Simon puzzled, was it correct?
Excuse the prig, bless Harpo, bless the sinner.
God is aware of what’s in our nature, she used her hair.
He squeezed a horn and chased a squealing girl
Throughout the film set. We laughed. The horse
On the feast of Saturn rode the grasp’s again.
Bless the nameless indecent Carnival lyrics
To the “Colonel Bogey March,” and all the higher
Realizing there by no means was a Colonel Bogey:
“Himmler had one thing related.” Prisoners of warfare
Whistle the tune in Bridge on the River Kwai,
“And Goebbels had no balls in any respect,” however no—No,
This time, the very opposites themselves
Reverse the cult of misrule itself undone
Right down to the altar. The European tribes
Topped for sooner or later a idiot a goat a rooster,
To offer the finger to a horned or strutting god.
Generally the blond brutes even ate the rooster.
Even the parody of order is all balled up.
And if it has occurred earlier than, all of the much less cause
Or extra to marvel or shrug at no matter charisma
Of darker or dumber indecency carries the day.
This poem seems within the April 2026 print version.
