Hercules Invictus

In the third century BC the people of the new Roman republic accepted the view that they were of Trojan lineage, that the god Heracles had founded the city of Rome, and that Aeneas and Achilles had fathered Romulus and Remus. This acceptance of the Greek view of the world, and Rome’s place in that Greek world, put Rome in direct conflict with Carthage, whom the Greeks despised as barbarians. This conflict led to the eventual destruction of Carthage, and the eventual destruction of the Roman republic as well. Yet who would have thought that the Greek myth of Heracles driving the cattle of Geryon south through Italy and thus to Pallanthium, the site of a future Rome, would lead to the world we live in today.

 

 

Hercules Invictus

How gods laugh as they inflict us

With the thought that we could understand the world

Though we wonder and we labor

Neither arquebus nor saber

Ever answered questions while the bagpipes skirled

For the stars remain in silence

As they look upon the violence

Of the salted cities midst the women’s cries

Yes we think we are exalted

And we never can be faulted

But the gods know we are smart but seldom wise

 

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The Triumph Of The Will

For seventy years the Democrats have chipped away at American freedoms, one salami slice at a time. The Liberal/Progressive agenda is to turn the United States into a failed socialist utopia, and the Republicans have gone along with the Progressive anschluss, afraid to disturb the sleep of the American public. And now we have in the White House Barack Obama, the leftmost lefty ever to occupy the Oval Office, and he has demonstrated he has the will to defy the Congress and the Constitution in order to complete the destruction of the United States. And so the man with the will to do as he will prevails, cheered on by the Leni Riefenstahl’s of the MSM.

 

 

The motorcade with sirens blare

The Man, the Moment, without care

The cheers from wild progressive throats

The pensioners who’ve sold their votes

The lazy who just take what comes

The innocent who suck their thumbs

The beaten who avert their eyes

The pols who just divide the pies

The folks who nominate a Mitt

Who’d never have a screaming fit

And wants to do the thing that’s right

But not if it will take a fight

All watch the motorcade fly past

And know why good guys finish last

 

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Goodbye

Goodbye, Emmylou Harris

 

The world is changing, the culture is shifting, possibly in ways we cannot as yet understand. Nonetheless, it is time to say goodbye to Liberalism, the nanny state, the New York Times and Barack Obama. To the tune of Goodbye, a long time Democrat voter gives up on Obama and the New York Times. With new lyrics by Verse-afire.

 

 

I remember, holding on to you

Holding on, my whole life through

Yes I know, sometimes you made me cry

But I can’t remember if we said goodbye

And I recall when the sky was the purest blue

And the words that you said were true

At least so you said

And I recall all the weird things you used to do

When the world was there just for you

And now you’re put to bed

I will miss you, every now and then

And I hope we’ll not see you again

And sometimes I break down and cry

‘Cause I waited too long to say goodbye

Yes I waited too long to say goodbye

 

See my novels and collected verse at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle HERE 

 

Larry, Moe And Curly

The Three Stooges are but a distant memory, though elections bring out all the Stooges who think they should be in the Oval Office. It need not have been that way, at least not this year, but the Republican first team decided not to play and so we are left with the second string and jayvees. Obama may have a plan to cancel the election, but I don’t think he needs to. All he needs to do is give the stage to the three stooges and stay out of sight until November.

 

 

Those right wing guys are truly nuts

To think that that Obama putz

Will cancel the election with a wink

And rule by Diktat with a smile

And honeyed words that will beguile

The masses as they hail their new found Kink

And yet the signs are everywhere

That for the polls he does not care

He acts as though it’s in the bag for sure

He sleeps and golfs and appoints czars

As though it’s written in the stars

That he will be the prez another four

The curtain’s closed, the stage is dark

But in the wings a whispered “Hark!”

As in the dark the Stooges tiptoe in

And then to everyone’s surprise

Moe’s fingers stick in Curly’s eyes

And thus another Stoogie does begin

The audience consists of one

Obama laughs at all the fun

The Stooges just give him a laughing fit

And no it isn’t Larry, Moe

That sends Obama laughing so

It’s Stooges named Ron Paul and Newt and Mitt

 

 See my novels and collected verse at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle HERE

 

Land Of Our Fathers

Muslims are driving Christians out of the Middle East, out of lands they lived in for hundreds and thousands of years before there was an Islam. The Copts of Egypt are being persecuted by the newly empowered Muslim Brotherhood, the Druze are being evicted from Lebanon, and Christians are being driven out of Iraq, a country the United States spent blood and treasure setting free from the Sunni tyrant Saddam Hussein only to find the country now ruled by Shi’a tyrants. An entire group of people are being driven from their ancestral homes, leaving behind their ancestors to lie in hostile land.

 

 

The land our fathers tilled

The land our children filled

With children of their own who laughed and sang

Beneath the soft blue sky

And never wondered why

The church bells that we knew no longer rang

From citizens at birth

With families and hearth

We walk the long dark trail to other lands

Our dead are left to stay

In earth wherein they lay

Forever in a stranger’s burning sands

We look up at the stars

And think of all the scars

Our Christian faith has caused to come our way

The Maronites and Druze

The Copts who thought to choose

Our fathers’ God when we knelt down to pray

But we shall find a home

With fertile, watered loam

A home that says come stay and rest awhile

In meantime we shall pack

Our things upon our back

And say goodbye and walk out single file

 

See my novels and collected verse at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle HERE

 

The Wheel Of Fortune

The world is changing: Europe and the Middle East are going down, China, India and the rest of southeast Asia are going up. The scales are always moving. As one side goes up, the other goes down. Carthage, the premier economic and military power of the western Mediterranean, was at the height of its power at about the time Romulus and Remus began suckling at the teat of the wolf. And so it goes.

 

 

The laden ships, the Inland Sea

Mighty Baal, thy kingdom be

Bestride the world, thy ships for hire

Adventurers who left old Tyre

To start anew in western lands

And carve a city with bare hands

And now you call the west your home

Still knowing not the infant Rome

The Punic language spoke by all

The Latin still an infant’s squall

And yet the scales were trembling now

The Carthage gods with troubled brow

For they foresaw the future clear

The death of Carthage drawing near

The universe is never still

Who climbs the mountain, crests the hill

Will find that on the other side

The slope is steeper, and the ride

From top to bottom’s but a blink

No time to act, no time to think

And so it is with tide and time

The world doth speak, and speak in rhyme

To tell of others who before

Laid up their riches, filled their store

With goods and gold and heady wine

And saw each day as good and fine

That all must end, the circle made

And time to rest in blessed shade

To dream of when your own strong hands

Built Carthage dreams in western lands

 

See my novels and collected verse at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle HERE

 

The Music Man

President Obama believes he has the situation well in hand, that the cacophony of sound emanating from the Middle East can be turned to soothing music when he steps to the podium, bows to the audience, and raises his baton.

 

 

It’s Assad day in the Middle East

When guys can’t get along

And brother Muslims get deceased

For singing the wrong song

The Sunnis sing the song off key

The Shia hum the words

They hate each other but agree

They both hate all the Kurds

The Turks are singing softly

While Iran is singing bass

Obama, grinning loft’ly

Has the notes but not the place

But not to worry kiddies

For the song will sound much worse

When the ships and planes and Middies

Sing the chorus and last verse

 

 See my novels and collected verse at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle HERE

 

The Sonambulist

The Middle East is burning, Europe is collapsing, China is threatening to make the South China Sea a Chinese lake, Iran is about to incinerate Israel, and Obama smiles benignly, confident his strategy of appeasement will make everything come out all right. Future historians will remember the current Obama administration as adrift, moving slowly, dreamlike, with President Barack Obama a somnambulist, drifting aimlessly through the rooms of the White House while the world collapses around his feet.

 

 

The night closed softly, darkness etched

The corners of the room

And slowly covered all it met

With stygian, darkest gloom

And yet not all were still abed

A mist-like figured stirred

And into Oval Office walked

Without a sound or word

Asleep he was, a gentle snore

As to the maps he crept

And watched as paper countries burned

As he so soundly slept

 

 See my novels and collected verse at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle HERE

 

Cities

A look at a map of the 8th century BC Mediterranean world will show many names that  exist yet today, existed long before Carthage arose, and will no doubt exist long after Vesuvius covers Naples with a warm blanket for her eternal sleep. We do not need to seed the stars, for the journey of life on planet Earth is but begun.

 

 

When man first looked upon the stars

In breathless wondering awe

He set upon the lonely path

To conquer what he saw

And in the process built to last

The cities of his birth

That shine as brightly as the stars

And glorify our Earth

 

 See my novels and collected verse at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle HERE

 

Obama North

In an interview, a highly placed Japanese political analyst revealed that the new North Korean administration of Kim Jong-un will pattern itself on the current American administration.

 

 

Hope and change, he gravely said

To banish their dejection

Just rike for you in year oh eight

Had grorious erection

Awready signs in Pyongyang Square

Have picture of Obama

In frashing rights to right the sky

And made in Yokohama

A stimurus and Chinese debt

And soon the prace be humming

For Kim Jong-un in history be

Obama second coming

We Japanese are happy to

See North Korea prosperous

Though we prefer them far away

Antarctic or the Bosporus

 

 See my novels and collected verse at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle HERE