David X Novak
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Demanding Times

5/27/2017

 
“The present aspect of the country, I think, augurs one of the most difficult terms which any president has yet been called to weather; and I doubt Mr. Lincoln's capacity for the task of bringing light and peace out of the chaos that will surround him. A man of good heart and good intention, he is not firm. The times demand a Jackson.”
It seems in wake of the Barack Obama
Presidency, the country groans replete
With vain ambitious men as do compete
“By any means”—not short inflicting traumas— 
    To be successful in the feat
Superlative of self-aggrandizement,
Lest they face an abyss of discontent.

Men of good heart, nor good intention neither,
They sell the public short, but each colludes
In hurling sentimental platitudes
As though delivered from God (or the ether),
    The prestidigitizing brood’s
Sophistry notwithstanding, cheats and lies
Whereby some followers they hypnotize.

How can a land have been eviscerated
(Seemingly so) of all its honest souls?
Integrity has flitted through what holes
Or in what fiery furnace been cremated
    If not upon the devil’s coals?
Ambition, for the right, per upright means,
All may applaud; yet not deceptive sheens.

These advertise in language but pro forma,
Deceptive, disingenuous in the core:
No, Lincoln doesn’t live here anymore,
But if the heavens operate on karma
    There’s more surprises left in store,
Only I grieve, for the upright and honest
Whose hopes must lie the weakest and the wannest.

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