BYRD filddles in Purgatory

Byrd fiddles in Purgatory

Byrd awakens in Purgatory,
to him, anywhere outside
The District or WVA

His old fiddle's in his hands.
“I don’t know who this fiddle's
su-post to punish, Re-publicans
or white niggers!” he quips.

Instantly, a black angel pops him
to the black Byrds' slave quarters
where he’s told to play for them.

He pleads: “I was born
Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr.;
get me some Sale niggers.”
Black Sales appear in quarters
they’ve built for themselves.

Byrd sees no way in Purgatory
to fluff his KKK past & admits
“Yes, I was. The Klan a-woke
my ambition to run for office.”
Opaque admission fails as
Klan ghosts rise in sheets.

Byrd sees Purgatory-time
won't be as comfortable as
5 decades in U.S. Congress.
“This old fiddle's jest for me,”
he admits ruefully, re-tuning.


(28 JUN 10, Santa Clara CA)v8
a variant appears on p.93 of GARGOYLE 57 (2011)

Gargoyle
3819 North 13th St.
Arlington VA 22201
(703)-525-9296
gargoyle@gargoylemagazine.com
www.gargoylemagazine.com

Bedtime stories

My Scottish dad told bedtime stories of
The Spanish (crab-) Apple & his sons
riding bareback in Spain (not California)

but never told me why this idea
in the mid-‘40s; once I heard about
The Spanish Apple, Superman was absurd;

Wonder Woman’s golden bustier & lasso,
transparent plane, soon enchanted me
& still do, 6 decades later.

(27 JUN 10, Santa Clara CA.)v10

CHENEY laughs

(AP) KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. military's top officer assured Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday that the new NATO commander will pursue the same war strategy crafted by Gen. Stanley McChrystal — the ousted general whom Karzai warmly praised for training Afghan security forces and reducing civilian casualties.

CHENEY laughs when he reads that
Karzai “warmly praised” McChrystal.
“F’n right he did. That lame-ass s.o.b.
is right out of the CHENEY playbook!”
"Can it get any better?” (he thinks), I
own'm all, coming & going. I make'm
all say & do just what I want, when.”
CHENEY's the dramaturg of oil wars,
(but not oil-accidents; those he avoids.)
“I want that oil to flow & burn, I want
to see those columns of black smoke
rising on the desert & the battlefield.”

(26 JUN 10, Santa Clara CA) v3

CHENEY spits as

CHENEY spits as the AM-radio
says Crist polls 42%, Rubio 31%.
“Where the f’r all those greasy
ex-Cubans?” forgetting it’s only
angloradio, not radioespanol
where Rubio polls a cool 110%.
“I’m told Rosie Ruiz is 100% for
that greasy bag of plantain chips!”.
2 bar-flies stare blankly as he raves;
neither understands English, both
are (indeterminate) war escapees.

(25 JUN 10, Santa Clara CA)v2

CHENEY feels for

CHENEY feels for his balls
in his sleep, thinking: how they
were once as hard as pool-balls
when he racked the WH baize.

“It doesn’t really matter @ all!
I have lots of new balls in play
now that Scooter’s boxed, &
Petraeus replaces McChrystal.

I still have my own 2Q balls!”

(23 JUN 10, Santa Clara CA)v3

Afghan minerals

Once gold, iron & copper were
Afghanistan’s fabled minerals;
then rare earth elements,

now niobium, lithium
for the world’s batteries;
soon: depleted uranium.

(06 JUN 10, Santa Clara CA)3

Silicon Val$

Don’t confuse the
Silicon-Vallization
of the desparate

California Republican Party
with the Technology Party
of the ‘30s; it was leftish;

today’s ex-hi-tech CEOs
Meg Whitman (ex-eBay)
& Carly Fiorina (ex-HP)

are millionaire Silicon Val$.

(09 JUN 10, SantaClara CA)v6

~ Bill