Thoughts From July

The Jester and the Gladiator: One sang and danced for our pleasure-/ He sang of being "big and bad" but was still in fear of an abusive Dad/ The other was a stalwart brother who could run and throw like no other/ One played in agony/ As few could meet his measure/ The other left a legacy of song that was a national treasure/ One would not yield as he seized the field/ The other would play and play/ In his Neverland life, shunting reality away/ One had emotional growth so sadly stunted/ The other faced blow after blow barely blunted/ One wore the armor of a lifelong child/ The other seemed a stable leader, not the least bit wild/ One fell because he could not sleep at night/ The other because he boarded the "crazy bitch" flight/ In ways, both lived to entertain/ One fought his own demons/ Both had their pain/ Rest would not find one- so he would weep/ The other afflicted by infidelity creep/ Both felt their plans were set in stone/ But God Himself decides alone/ One may stage the world's greatest show/ But can not Know/ One may precisely direct a ball/ But One Above controls it all/ One visited the arena mostly on Sundays/ The other lived life as a carnival trying to make the doldrums "fun days"/ Both had passed their performance prime/ Battling the ravages of time/ Both succumbed to the Fall/ Neither expecting the ultimate Call/ Our days are indeed speedin'/ As we are so far away from Eden. (Originally published to commemorate the loss of Steve McNair and Michael Jackson on July 5, 2009) Number 9 with a Bullet: It is always him that the fans adore/ But he was failed by a bullet or four/ You would always hear the crowds roar/ They wanted more and more/ His athleticism simply astounded/ I could not believe how it sounded/ When I heard "Air" McNair was permanently grounded/ As for me, I saw him twice/ I had no inkling whether he was nice/ But obviously, he had a little vice/ For which he paid the ultimate price. (Another musing on Steve McNair's murder) We Die Free in Tennessee: You can pump that bilge from the streets of San Francisco to the sewers of D.C./ But you can't impose it in the hills of Tennessee/ My family, friends, and neighbors are still willing to give their lives to be free/ You can seize a town in battle/ But you'll never conquer me. (The last two posts were originally published July 6, 2009) The Silver Thread: The silver thread in the golden chain/ Gives us two millennia of Cain/ We gave you your Lord/ If there be a Son/ So go and spare us the pain/ We have suffered and been demeaned/ For a mission that could have happened no other way/ Denounced, betrayed, tortured beyond endurance- not only His lot/ But brought to us ever since/ We had no might, no armies, no nations/ But armies and nations turned their might against our babes in arms and mothers/ You who claim to be our brothers/ Is our extinction your Divine Commission?/ Just as Mary delivered Him to your masses/ Who so often lined up against us/ In inquisition, pogroms, Shoah's fire/ Was this your God's desire/ For the people of his earthly mother?/ We never proclaimed flawless lives/ Never ate of the Paschal Lamb/ Real or fake/ We did not partake/ So just leave us be and we will carry our sins with us/ That is our cross you neither share/ Nor have to bear. (Protest against Christian persecution of Jews that appeared on July 10, 2009) Obama's Jaundiced Judges: The one who is anointed/ Has appointed one supremely disjointed/ Both the master and the judicial disaster stand against the old order/ They both bear a grudge/ To be enforced by "Soviet" Sotomayor/ A strikingly leftist judge/ Who from here anti-old order prejudice won't budge/ She would have sat comfortably on Stalin's court/ Where law was a scoundrel's resort/ With revocation of rights/A practiced sport. (Written on July 14, 2009)