“You’ve ruined my reputation
By airing in the light
My history of predation
And acts of denigration
That by no estimation
Could ever have been right.
“What I — and all my buddies —
Have done, felt good to us,
But accusation muddies
Our name as goody-goodies:
When we were having woodies
Nobody made a fuss.”
These words with tears being spoken
So seethed the nominee:
“My crimes should count as joking,
Sweet privilege unbroken,
But since on lies I’m choking,
The victim here is me!”
Ah, his interlocutors
They scratched their heads, and sighed,
“It’s what boys do, young tutors,
In training to be looters,
And we are their recruiters:
The entry way is wide.”
Then all the good boys voted,
They cast and cast and cast,
As one by one they gloated
That no great harm was noted,
Hypocrisy being floated
Miasma like, and vast.
“It’s like a creeping karma,”
The nominee declared,
“I thought I was a charmer,
No less the harmed than harmer,
But must truth pierce my armor?
I haven’t been prepared.”
It is the Way of action:
What’s done, may well return,
Each character infraction
And wayward satisfaction
For which, in their attraction,
We burn because we burn.