(Copyright ©2001 by Kristofer Dale, all rights reserved.)


   An Ode Upon a Happy New Year
 (or A Fool Jihad Beats a Paradox)

The pen is mightier than the sword
Yet seemingly innocuous as the gourd
In the hands of bush-league leaders
And various corporate wheedlers
Who seek to discredit their forebears
To expedite unilateral cares
Thus the work of centuries is dissolved
In the dash of signatures so resolved
To save we innocents from ourselves
For the likes of Santa and his elves
A fitting paradox for our time
Far more ridiculous than sublime
A war on everything has begun
And once again our tale is spun
By mincing voices of official reason
That on reprise sound more like treason...

Christianity's outlook becomes bleak
When it refuses to turn the other cheek
Back to the Old Testament of humanity's youth
With an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
Onward stalwart christian soldiers
With swaggering gait and flexing shoulders
Bent to the task of repealing democracy
In the name of God to shield the hypocrisy
The historical perspective is equally stark
When one has the temerity to face the dark
The nuclear family with its nuclear arms
Wrapped "lovingly" around the world can't harm
With such wisdom and justice at the helm
Guided by a feudal prince of the realm
Transforming the process of democracy
Into a totalitarian technocracy...

It's said the price of freedom is eternal vigilance
At least for those who can afford self-reliance
But for the disenfranchised so readily abused
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
Ironic that past visions of 2001 space odysseys
Have degenerated into Star Wars oddities
And the health and welfare of our nation
into myriad side effects to medication
Culled from the general population
Through the mechanism of valuation
Throwing money at our problems
Has long been an American emblem
Yet such taxation without representation
Is an affront to the citizens of any nation
Who must suffer this brave new world order
Imbued with its distinctly old world odor...

                  aszsa