Babylon and Xanadu

In Babylon did Saddam Hussein
A stately torture dome decree
Where near the ancient rivers ran
Through evil measureless to man
Down to a sundrenched sea.

So twice five miles of desert soil
Walls were girdled by moats of oil;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many a terror plan
And here were pools, statues and all the frills
To flatter the vanity of a soulless man.

But Oh! That bunker deep and daunting
Below the palace near to hell,
A savage place! For civilization’s taunting
Forever its denizen’s cries will be haunting.
By woman wailing for first born son.
And into this chamber, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if the air in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty weapon momently was forced,
And with a swift discharge it burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail,
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever,
It flung up pieces of Saddam’s body severed.

Nearby meandering with a mazy motion,
Through ancient streets the timeless river ran,
Rolling past evil measureless to man
To sink in shame at a busy ocean.
And ‘mid this tumult Saddam heard from far
Angry voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of torture
Floated midway on the waves
Where was felt the minion’s scorcher
From the bunker of the knaves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny torture-dome with souls of ice.

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was a Babylonian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of sacred Najaf.
Could I revive within me.
Her symphony and song.
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me
That with forces proud and strong,
I would destroy all torture-domes by air,
Those Sunni domes! Those souls of ice!

And all who saw them no longer there
And all who should cry, Beware! Beware!
His pitiless eyes, his helmet hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes and do not dread,
For he is really, finally dead,
And will not ever see Paradise.

With apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (see http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/users/kaa/poem/poem.html)

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: An enormous wall of stone
Stands lonely in the desert. Upon it, on its face
Half faded, a hideous visage appears, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its painter well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Saddam Hussein, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The Raving (A parody of Edgar Allen Poe's, The Raven)

By Jim Phillips

(from the Wall Street Journal, Feb 12, 2003)

Once upon a Sunday dreary, while gazing, bleak and bleary,
Over many a shrill and shrieking rant of columnists galore,
In my heart I felt a sinking. "Have they lost their knack for thinking?! It's enough to start me drinking!" And I must confess I swore; I confess I spat the vilest of invective as I swore, Spat and cursed, and stomped the floor.

For distinctly I remember, it was in the bright September

When a blast of flame and ember marked the starting of the war, Yet this morning finds me tracking all these dodos, brains a-slacking Still insistent that we're lacking all the proof which they ignore, All the proof which, head in sand, they so conveniently ignore. Quoth the peaceniks, "We need more."

And I scarce can watch the TV without the chill of heebie jeebies At the sight of movie actors spouting off their gripe du jour. To the Jimmy Carter stand-ins (Streisand, Baldwin, Penn, Sarandon): If it's so dire, why not abandon this totalitarian shore For the greener lands of France? Depart this dark repressive shore! Quoth the peaceniks, "Nevermore!"

But there's just one valid answer to the throbbing media cancer, And the queasy timid souls for whom there's naught worth fighting for, And to Daschle's petty prattling, and Saddam's harsh saber-rattling: We must now begin the battling of this deadly cheerless chore, For should we shirk the burden of our grim and somber chore, We shall know peace . . . nevermore.

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