Barney Frank declares the housing bubble was not the same as the tulip bubble of centuries ago, because houses have value and tulips do not. If anyone knows how to tiptoe through the tulips, it’s Bahney Fwank.

When Bahney Fwank sees tulips bloom

His tiny tippy toes

Just glide along with awesome grace

I know, he’s one of those

He does the same with Freddie Mac

As well as Fannie Mae

With subprime deals for favored folks

The rest of us must pay

He’s generous as to a fault

He dances through this life

The question though is Fannie Mae

Or Freddie Mac his wife

I am often asked how I manage to write such beautiful, scintillating and perceptive verse every day. The answer is genius. Yes, I admit it, I am a genuine, card carrying genius. Always have been. That’s just the way it is, and you’ll just have to live with it.

Those who’ve read my brilliant verse

Knows genius is an awful curse

We’re prone to love ourselves and hug each line

Yes genius is a curse we bear

Yet we press on because we care

For lesser mortals who are not so fine

Yes, genius answers when it’s called

Though showing it leaves others galled

Be happy that this genius writes this stuff

I know I’m preaching to the choir

The genius that is verse-afire

Just don’t find my real IQ or call my bluff

The Mommy State is with us, as evidenced by the overwhelming number of women who voted for Barack Obama, as well as for the general state of the culture that is becoming more and more like France every day.  Women are different from men, in that their first thought is the protection and maintenance of their children.  Where once a woman depended on a man for these services, she now depends on the State, and so will continue to vote for those who agree to provide for them.  Men are no longer needed.  The State is now husband and master.  But can it last?

We find us poised with quite a daunting thesis

An argument with which I must agree

When Mommy State implodes who gets the pieces

Is something I at present cannot see

Some claim in eighteen one a Brit named Tyler

Proclaimed democracies not long to run

He didn’t say it just to be a riler

He said that in the best case, number one

Democracies last only ‘til the voters

Find out their votes breed governmental doles

He didn’t know that once invented motors

That women could be driven to the polls

They voted in the guys who’d give them power

They’re voting for them to this very day

They disengaged the cradle from the bower

And now we find we’ll soon have hell to pay

The Mommy State has fastened on our culture

But surely it has finally run its course

That shadow overhead is from a vulture

Just waiting for some unforgiving force

To put a noisy end to all this posing

To see such nonsense put at last to bed

I see this lefty chapter quickly closing

If lucky we shall not have many dead

The Mommy State will last until some tragic

Event now clearly seen as tipping point

Will clean the slate again as if by magic

And once again the men will run the joint

As of 2008 the salaries of federal employees averaged $119,982 per year, while the average private sector salary was $59,909. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Health care and pension benefits adds $40,785 per year to the average salary of federal employees but only $9,881 to the average salary of private sector employees. Do the math. Average salary and benefits for federal employees = $160, 767, while average salary and benefits for private sector workers = $69,790. The average federal employee thus makes $69,790 a year more than the average private sector worker. And it’s worse than that. As of 20 January 2008, when President Obama took office, there were fewer than one hundred federal employees making more than $170,000 a year, and six months later the number had climbed above three thousand. Used to be a person went to work for the government at a lower salary than could be earned in the private sector, but offset that with a guaranteed lifetime job. Today, if you want to get rich, get a job with the government. Of course, if you want to get really rich, become a part of the government.

I work for the Feds and I’m quite pleased to say

I’m here to assist you get through your bleak day

I know you need help in the very worst way

And helping is my middle name

I make lots of money, much more than I need

With many promotions at breath-taking speed

I play by the rules both by word and by deed

And government work is my game

I’ll just need your name and your Social as well

Your bank account number I swear I won’t tell

I know that your life has been one living hell

And we know George Bush is to blame

We’ve taken your health care right out of your hands

It’s free with your payments in gold Krugerrands

With treatment provided by wild gypsy bands

No changes, your health care’s the same

No need now to worry ‘bout allies and such

The people once foes we now love very much

If trouble arises we’ll call on the Dutch

To carry on freedom’s bright flame

Yes I’m from DC and I’m quite pleased to note

That you and I sail in the very same boat

But things I have said you are never to quote

Yes government work is my game

Political Correctness has reshaped our culture in ways that will ultimately lead to our demise as a coherent, cohesive, law abiding society.  Political correctness sets color against color, class against class, gender against gender. Diversity has resulted in discrimination against White males and Asians in favor of Blacks. Universities routinely admit and advance Blacks with lower scores than Whites and Asians. Hate speech is any word or group of words that any single member of a favored ethnic group finds personally objectionable. Can a comedian tell a Polish joke? Yes. A Jewish joke? Yes. A Catholic joke? Yes. A Black joke? No. A Muslim joke? No. Well, he can tell a Muslim joke but then he’ll have to go into hiding and take his family with him. Where will it end? It will end where all such evils end, with the slaughter (worst case) or the banishment (best case) of the favored minority by the disfavored majority.     

When days are old, the knights not bold

But manners are quite particular

We dare not shout, or e’en speak out
Lest we be perpendicular

Against a wall, a waiting pall

For daring to express a view

That some might see as blasphemy

And brand us as a parvenu

Ill bred, a boor, and what is more

Ill mannered, a vulgarian

For daring to vile words to spew

Like some grotesque Bulgarian

How could it be my fair country

Is peopled now by madder men

Where knights once bold are now just old

And wise too late but sadder men

Immigration is not what it used to be. There was a time you booked passage on a ship, crossed the Atlantic, spent a few hours in Ellis Island and were sent on your way. No visits to consulates, no background checks, no tests, no interviews, no waiting for years to be let in. Now it’s all hassle for anyone to gain legal immigrant status, to the extent it’s surprising anyone even tries. It’s no hassle, of course, for illegal immigrants from certain countries. They just walk across the border, get free health care, free schools for their kids, and sooner or later amnesty makes them citizens, while those who try the legal way wait in limbo while favored others cut in line. Thank goodness my grandmother came when she did.

A woman from Norway with tow-headed kids

Boarded ship for the US one day

And settled in steerage so young and afraid

Their passage was only one way

The northern Atlantic in winter was fierce

And in steerage the air grew most foul

As the ship heeled to seas that came crashing aboard

And the wind made the most fearsome howl

At Ellis they waited in rooms densely packed

Where clerks at long tables all day

Asked for places of birth and the spelling of names

And in short time were sent on their way

No consular visits, no bulletproof glass

No scanners, no waiting for years

She got on a ship with her husband and kids

After kissing her family with tears

They settled in Philly and raised fine strong sons

And beautiful daughters as well

And that’s how my grandmom came to the New World

And I have a story to tell

Today is the first anniversary of Verse-afire.  When I started I wondered if I could write a new verse every day, wondered if there would be something to write about every day. Well, that has been answered. And so, on this glorious anniversary of the birth of the blog, not to be confused with the birth of the blues, I reprint my initial offering, a little something called SALMON CHANTED EVENING.

I have stood on a lonely beach, listening to the gentle shushing of the waves, fishing the Atlantic Ocean in the deepness of the night, a translucent moon lighting the water, turning the sand to glittering bits of tiny diamonds. At such moments I care naught about catching fish, for I am waiting for the moon to set, waiting for the night to surround me, waiting for the fish to sing. For they do sing, but only to those who choose to hear them. Old standards, mostly, standards like

SALMON CHANTED EVENING

Something’s fishy, people say

A slur to briny cousins

You don’t hear fish say that ‘bout us

Though reasons they have dozens

We treat them all about the same

With hook and net and trawler

We bait them with some eel or squid

And sometimes a night crawler

And all because they’re good to eat

Their taste is quite delicious

Salmon, trout or small mouth bass

Just show me where the fish is

They’re not as dumb as some do think

They talk and sing till late

Nearer My Cod To Thee is one

And another Kiss Me Skate

Come Joe Sardine In My Flying Machine

And the popular Am l Blue

I love to hear those good old songs

But I sure wish they’d sing something new

The countries of southern Europe are teetering on the brink of financial disaster, default of overwhelming debt a near certainty for such as Portugal, Greece and Spain. And all because of the socialist Ponzi scheme the countries of Europe ran, borrowing from foreigners to pay the interest on previously borrowed money, all to pay the fat salaries and pensions of their government workers. Gone are the days of the silver fleets anchoring in Cadiz to offload the treasure of the Americas. Now the money flows the other way, and the ships are but ghosts in the night.

Down the Gualalquivir, the old river of war

From Seville to the sea and then west

To the sun spattered lands of the Aztecs they bore

Men of steel, men at arms, Europe’s best

That was then, this is now, golden days are long gone

When the ships and the men put to sea

And returned with the gold to Cadiz with the dawn

A fair harbor and safety to lee

The Platte fleet now sails in the night in the dreams

Of a nation now somehow laid low

By the socialist nostrums and socialist schemes

Of the leftists who could not say no

To the unions and others who held out their hands

For the good things the leftists could give

Now the rivers of war water sparse and dry lands

And the dream of the past does not live

Russia is now selling a containerized missile system to anyone with the money to buy. The idea is you load the container on a ship, anchor it in an unsuspecting harbor, raise the container lid, and the missile rises to the vertical and is ready to fire. Now all anyone needs is an atomic warhead. What’s that? Oh yes. I forgot. The muslims already have Pakistani warheads, so now all they need is a ship. What’s that? Oh, right. We’re okay. The Department of Homeland Security is on the job and they’ve just issued a decree that everyone has to take his shoes off before boarding the ship. 

For many years

‘Mid cheers and jeers

We practiced full containment

Of every threat

The Soviet

Advanced for its attainment

And now I see

That for a fee

Come missiles and a trainer

So now we must

Instead of trust

Examine each container

I am sometimes asked why I write verse. The answer is because I can’t sing, or play the piano. A three chord country song on the ukulele stretches my talent. And so I am left with words.

Let me tell you, I say, let me tell you, you hear

How it all died aborning, my music career

I played Die Walkure, but was rudely thrown out

I played it in English, without the umlaut

Figaro I sang with sore throat and much heart

But they said not to put the hoarse before Mozart

I sang Massenet standing next to piano

And was yanked off the stage, I was not a soprano

Sick unto death, disappointed, I curse

The notes are the problem, I’ll stick to the verse

So that’s why you see me alone in the night

Writing rhymes till all hours, praying only for light

My tombstone is written, my full epitaph

My life in a nutshell, I’ll cry if not laugh

For chiseled in stone, to be seen for all time

Are the words Only fault was he just liked to rhyme