TWILIGHT'S LAST 'GLEANING'

By the dawn’s early light it suddenly came to me,

that America’s best days were behind her.

It isn’t the media per say,

or the government shut down exactly,

or even that dreck of idiocy that seems to pass

for mass entertainment these days.

At least…not individually.

Yet, the cumulative effect has been the same,

heaping steaming excrement on all sides,

A cultural mindset having lost its guiding light.

What principles are these?

Where does the constitution stand?

Not at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,

when the man in charge

and the one upstairs

are not of the same faith…

in one nation, indivisible under God

with mercy and justice for all.

Oh beautiful, the spaciously unemployed,

these amber waves turned gray,

the ship of fools having set sail six years before.

Uninspired times breed contempt for the whole.

Dirty little backroom politicos

scratch for their share,

the crust of bread,

however maggot-infested,

still desirable to none at all.

When did it get so bad?

Where did it all go wrong?

And who should lay claim

To the pit of the elders?

Not I, dear friend.

Nor he or she, the harried Reid

or Nan’ Pelosi.

The country’s gone to the dogs,

the mutts are slumming,

and any vote will do.

But do what, you ask?

And when, for we...

the people don’t eat in the long run.

People can’t see when the road is long

and the sun has set on America’s empire-building days.

When nothing gets done,

and compromise is code

for entrenched principles,

they damage the very fabric of democracy,

I promise you this -

With a sickening twist,

When special interests are ahead of a democracy,

Hush-a, hush-a, we all fall down.

The grand experiment at an end

stirring the muck with the mire.

Because the model is gone, you see.

…and who can we emulate now?