The CONSCIENCE of a CHICKENHAWK, 2006

For Andrew Sullivan and his Ilk.

"In retrospect, I'd have to say
I've been a sorry fool.
Those Neocons led me astray,
And used me as their tool."

"I was 'too trusting,' too afraid,
Like children in the night,
And so I hopped on Bush's train
And bellowed 'Fight, team, fight!'"

"When some said 'This preemptive war's
Illegal and unrighteous,'
I brayed 'You're traitors, Saddam's whores,
And buddies of al-Qaeda's!'"

"When some said, 'We'll be there for years,
And make things worse by staying,'
I stuck my fingers in my ears
And drowned them out by braying."

"I guess Bush shoulda had a plan
And listened to advice
From sources more discerning than
Doug Feith, Rumdum and Rice."

"In retrospect, my 'punditry'
Almost makes me ashamed.
(I'll throw in here an R.I.P.
For thousands dead and maimed.)"

"Although the slaughter, blood and waste
And crooked enterprise
And blowback of this war were based
On 'errors' (don't say 'lies!'),"

"And though perhaps I have deserved
Discredit and derision,
I don't regret the tour I served
In the Chickenhawk Division."

I'll still maintain the noble dream
That it’s our destiny
To liberate ragheads till they scream
And spread Democracy.

"Because the damage is not mine;
'Collateral' means 'unreal.'
A Chickenhawk is always fine
With pain he doesn't feel."

"You see, because our cause was just,
Somehow, this devastation,
Lies, torture, theft and...pixie dust
Will build a brand-new nation."

"Well, now my mea culpa's made,
I feel less sore and vexed
In fact I'm all hot to invade -
Look out, Iran; you're next."

A PAIR of PARODIES

Dubya! Thy beauty is to me
Like those Wilsonian barks of gore
That savagely, o'er a blood-dimmed sea
Send asymmetric Death to free
The living from life's chore.

On bibulous sprees long wont to roam,
Thy nondescript hair, thy vapid face
Thy simian airs have brought me home
To the Desert that is Peace,
The Guantanamo that is Rome.

Lo! on yon brilliant Teevee screen
How Stalin-like thy motorcade!
The granite lump that is thy head
Announces thy next mad Crusade
To Folly-Land!

*********************************

HE walks in booty, like the blight
Of boundless crimes and warring cries,
And all that's worst of smirk and smite
Meet in his aspect and his eyes;
Though yellow in that Asian fight,
Which Hell decreed for other guys.

One lie the more, one lie the less,
Could not impair the shameless, base
Delight in every brazen stress,
Of dimwits who adore his face,
Whose thoughts, supremely smug, express
How narrow is their dwelling-place.

And while that simian lip lets fall
His phrases stale, grandiloquent,
The smirk that stays, the infinite gall
But tell of life in darkness spent —
A heart at peace with war’s dead pall,
A mind whose "peace" means "killed 'em all."