Another gem from TMV’s favorite poet, Michael Silverstein, aka Wall Street Poet:
Given what’s in newspapers these days, it’s probably best not to read one shortly after rereading William Butler Yeats “The Second Coming.” Doing so may lead to thoughts such as these…
The Coming Conflagration
The problem with a tenderbox
The cause for great dismay
Is that once you¹ve stacked the kindling
You are just a spark away
From the loosing of a fire
That becomes a conflagration
Spreading fast beyond all bounderies
A horrendous consummation.
Look around you at the feedstock
That our policies have spawned
How constraining institutions
Their goodwill we’ve cheaply pawned
How with arrogance and bullying
We played the loutish duffer
Can one dodge the laws of karma
Play the fool and then not suffer?
We are close now to the tipping point
That point of fatal dip
When the common threads of decency
No more restrain the slip
Into fiery deeds and mayhem
Long prepared, now fully flowered
Wrought by cheery, glazed-eyed madmen
Our own bumbling empowered.
© 2006 Michael Silverstein
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.