Saturday, August 24, 2019

"We as a nation simply cannot" [fill in the blank]


We were enchanted, weren't we,
to see that wonderful scaffold
for demagogic perfidy deployed
in an online column by a CNN
"Business" contributor, on the
wisdom of American trade "pol-
icy" at this moment of inter-
national sinking in soufflées.

Surely we recall a fratboy's
exculpatory mantra, whenever
his least excusable of binges
tugs at the heartstrings so
infallibly enmeshed in flag,
family, and fanny: the exi-
gencies of fellows, faith,
and fornication working fat-
uously to mask his choices. 

Recall these farces as we may,
it never hurts to pass around
their latest re-enactment, to
set the stage for Laurel and
Hardy on Saturday morning TV.
The Manichaeans play so well
in monochrome, don't they. We
love how their catastrophes
simply cannot be averted.

















Thursday, August 22, 2019

Danish borders we have known





Who knew that the present era,
such as it is, might come to be
defined by that Kierkegaardrail
against expansive idiocy, that
Danish aperçu-to-go with coffee,
the absurd. A pity, that from a
Queens so awash in Danish pastry,
a politician should have emerged
to stalk the earth with ignorance
as phosphorescent as his hair, on-
ly to gain his comeuppance from a
better of her territorial integ-
rity than to cede it, McConnell-
ishly, to his silly bluster. It
wasn't so much that his nation
had furnished no rejoinder, that
set the morning papers abuzz to
that when it finally did arrive,
it should have tripped so obvious-
ly and irrefutably from a culture
not known for power plays at all.

Ladies' Javelin aside, of course.


























Monday, August 19, 2019

Rued, the boat





You think Britain has it bad, to
be led by a PM of iridescent dis-
regard for the realities of Brex-
it? America has a similarly dyed
without fibbing. But think of poor
Bogey, sparring with Claude Rains
on the patio at Rick's, having to
claim he migrated to Casablanca
for the waters, against Rains' re-
joinder that there aren't any. On-
ly in the movies, is it endearing
to confess, I was misinformed. Or
does that line survive so well, be-

















Sunday, August 18, 2019

Khaki sempervirens





  I don't know why I think the green
  that is so congenital in khaki is,
  in any way, elusive. It may please
  me to be so, but it will be there.






















Lynn Bystrom
Gray Wolf
Getty Images©