Sunday, June 08, 2003

The Farmer
acting as one of several substitutes while Atrios is on the road provided us with this brilliant observation about Our President.

All the worlds a political stage.
And all the pundits and pol-ops merely players:
They have their exit strategies and their entrance requirements;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the child.
Mewling fluke of privileged charms.
And then the winsome schoolboy, with his skull and bones.
And vacant wellborn face, sleeping at Yale
Oblivious to intellect. And then the rover
Lies to burnish, stuporous, doleful, pallid
Clade to the listless eyebrow. Then a soldier
Full of warrior tropes, and played like a card.
Missing from duty, yet suddenly wreathed in laurels.
Seeking the bubble reputation
Levin for the canon's grouse. And then the injustice.
In sound and folly with crafted shapen lines
With guise and smear and suits of formal cut,
Fond of slantwise maws and tortured nuances
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts.
Into the lean and codpieced brigadier dragoon,
With spectaculars on cue and press on board
His boastful pose well played, a world too tried
For his cranks crunk; and his slow tangled tongue
Turning again toward churlish quibbles, quips
And siren songs resound. Last scene of all,
That ends this shortchange retrogress misery
Is no second curtain, and mere oblivion for a fool.

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