Goodness and Honesty

Burdened by the anvil weight of intellectual curiosity

Gulliver’s horses ran around, and all through me

Frugal tongued silence bowed toward eternity

Zealous for Truth with an unsophisticated intensity

And a deep respect for Goodness and Honesty

In disbelief I read the words of the Joker propagandist 

Against the rocks Truth sprayed in an evaporating mist

Said I, “Say what you mean, mean what you say, I insist”

But headlines read “Catching Truth’s a Sisyphean plot twist”

“Protect Goodness and Honesty!” I demanded with clenched fist

Clad in shining armor, lance tucked to my side

Tilting at barren pages across the great divide

Questing for Truth’s grail, young and eager eyed

Every castle claimed to have one, brazenly they lied

Leaving me to wonder if Goodness and Honesty had died

Sitting on the mocking boulder my lance dulled at its end

O’Brien, arguments against the man my hopes did upend

Memory holes, new puritan scolds left me with nothing to recommend

But retreat to a cave and watch the final destruction begin

For Goodness and Honesty I had no power to defend

From lofty mountain peaks I watched the armies assemble

As evil clown ambassadors met in the middle to dissemble

The scornful wind made the infantries’ uncertain knees tremble

For they knew victory for either side would be inconsequential

To Goodness and Honesty every outcome would be detrimental 

On a frozen, moonless winter night I crept from my cave

On a barren forsaken wasteland I knelt beside a shallow grave

Neglectfully dug in haste by the new regime’s slaves

Bitterly I wept remembering their sardonic raves

As they taunted Goodness and Honesty, whom none could save

September 2016