Bandwagon

Plastered across tediously sterile walls

Posters announce “The Greatest Show On Earth.”

Uniformed burghers Ringleader enthralls

While maintaining an appropriate berth;

Gestated in womb of the Great Cabal

This is the One, the Son of virgin birth.

They hear patriotic music grinding

Long before the cart steamrolls into sight;

Antiseptic beasts that don’t need minding

Come first, trained only the headstrong to bite;

But among this crowd they won’t be finding

Many who won’t say the dull pledge forthright.

Clowns mosey through the minacious parade 

Juggling blackjacks in bullying display;

People fall in line along the arcade

And throughout the obedient beltway,

Repeating rank platitudes of crusade,

Vowing stale dogmas to never betray.

The bandwagon stampedes through the bleak street

Hear the brassman’s horn blowing loud and long,

While the drummer pounds out a warning beat

"This train will crush you if you don’t get on;"

Strongman and sidekick flash a little heat

Something to move the docile crowd along.

Ringleader gracefully steps to the ring

Smacking his switch in the palm of his hand,

Bandwagon’s choir abjectly stands to sing

A stagnant anthem of the promised land;

A willful peasant doesn’t see the swing

Of the club; how dare he kneel when all stand.

A vote’s called to quell a growing murmur,

Forlorn burghers must declare loyalty;

With watchful clowns, all villagers concur

The Son’s just what they want in royalty;

The willful one all solemnly abjure,

Clowns count ninety-seven percent fealty

Puppet Master posts Doctrine of the Day

All accept its requirements readily -

Factoids to memorize which all must say

Parroting to ev’ryone constantly -

Ignoring it contradicts yesterday’s,

This incantation bleats on steadily.

Bloated bandwagon now moves at a crawl

Downcast burghers follow a well worn track

Mounting the bandwagon come one and all

With gentle nudging by a blackjack’s whack;

Ringleader approves of this rolling pall,

As defeat is declared by fawning flacks.

Riding in the bandwagon’s shotgun seat

Ringleader eyes the posters with low mirth;

He’s happy to derisively repeat

The slogan, “The Greatest Show On Earth”

As disheartened burghers nod to the beat

Of the promised land's anthem “Freedom’s Dearth.”

October 2016