CANTO XVI - Man's Trinity of Ills
But when fascism (or some form of totalitarianism) comes it will
not be in the form of an anti-American movement... It will appear
rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will
take some genuinely indigenous shape and color, and it will
spread only because its leaders, who are not yet visible, will know
how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire
and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know
how to attract to their banners leaders who can command
the support of the controlling minorities in American public life.
John T. Flynn (journalist, 1882-1964)
As We Go Marching (book, 1944)
Wasting in the lost then the haste
The emotional cost as well the paste
In sorrow’s adhesion, lesions by absence
Ergo the abstinence persuasive
Stained by the strain invasive
Ambling fain in wallows
Stumbling by pain in hollows
Hallowed the poet’s metaphors
The idyllic whores in stanzas
Purchased allegories in cadenzas
As drunken sermons in yards
Hence scars by homilies oddly
On sod hotly, beasts trod curtly
Skirting the rare acumens
Averting to wrench and writhe in dens
Flirting then to contend
Vying again goddamn imperial rights
The feast, the fuck, and the fight
A trinity of ills per Man’s feral fright
While night crashes upon day
Trashing the inherent caches
Of codes, charges, and charters
Preexisting every conception
Liken unavoidable contraptions
Withal logical conclusions
Sorted rounds sound and profound
Confounding the utopian kinds
With totalitarianism sublime
Astounding the empirical minds
With illogical tunes and rhymes
Seeing the effects natural, the probable
Being the causes usual, the lamentable
But when fascism (or some form of totalitarianism) comes it will
not be in the form of an anti-American movement... It will appear
rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will
take some genuinely indigenous shape and color, and it will
spread only because its leaders, who are not yet visible, will know
how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire
and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know
how to attract to their banners leaders who can command
the support of the controlling minorities in American public life.
John T. Flynn (journalist, 1882-1964)
As We Go Marching (book, 1944)
Wasting in the lost then the haste
The emotional cost as well the paste
In sorrow’s adhesion, lesions by absence
Ergo the abstinence persuasive
Stained by the strain invasive
Ambling fain in wallows
Stumbling by pain in hollows
Hallowed the poet’s metaphors
The idyllic whores in stanzas
Purchased allegories in cadenzas
As drunken sermons in yards
Hence scars by homilies oddly
On sod hotly, beasts trod curtly
Skirting the rare acumens
Averting to wrench and writhe in dens
Flirting then to contend
Vying again goddamn imperial rights
The feast, the fuck, and the fight
A trinity of ills per Man’s feral fright
While night crashes upon day
Trashing the inherent caches
Of codes, charges, and charters
Preexisting every conception
Liken unavoidable contraptions
Withal logical conclusions
Sorted rounds sound and profound
Confounding the utopian kinds
With totalitarianism sublime
Astounding the empirical minds
With illogical tunes and rhymes
Seeing the effects natural, the probable
Being the causes usual, the lamentable
---
Come let us Reason. Peace is always a Choice.
Copyright © 2016-2017 by D.C. Quillan Stone
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