I’ve temporarily run out of syntactic annoyances to rail about, so here’s a poem, “Götterdämmerung,” which means an ass-whooping by the Gods or demagogues (my German’s not too good). Naturally, it’s whimsical, with a message of hope.

Götterdämmerung

The egg was cracked and broken
From a tumble off the wall
The office a plundered token
Of the siege before the fall

The house in perpetual mourning
Not white but ivory
The bedroom that’s said to be haunted
Was keening noisily

The suicide king and the porcelain queen
Were known for exceeding amoral extremes
The very best cake, the finest cuisine
And a bottomless need to extol the regime

Their Red Caps were rabid, and blind to the theme
Of a fascist dictator, as long as the king
Kept calling them great, and fanning their hate
With buckets of Kool-Aid and amyl nitrate

With our last nerve stretched to bursting
In a pair of ballooning pants
Detainees were parched and thirsting
For a little tolerance

Brown children howled in cages
While white men golfed on links
The nation screamed outrageous
And ordered a round of drinks

The suicide king hit a bogey
But claimed a hole in one
The porcelain queen got dirty
At the photo op with the scum

Now the lies and the lying liars
Who tell them and swear it’s the truth
Are the very same frequent fliers
Who decry CNN as fake news

And the bombast just keeps coming
It sinks down and roots at the base
But the song the rest are humming
Is about November’s race

The piper is calling for payment
And he wants a golden goose
We’re one step away from arraignment
As Mueller tightens the noose

I DIDN’T COLLUDE AND IT ISN’T A CRIME
THIS WITCH HUNT IS VERY UNFAIR

But for fraud and hacking you will do time
And high treason will get you the chair

So each day our breath is bated
Hope, that audacious dream
The government is fated
For reversion to the mean

And when all the king’s horses, his princes, and fools
The lackeys who cow tow then sing on their stools
Get caught, for their lack of cunning
Then cue the fat lady and the Valkyries too

Götterdämmerung is coming