Richard II
or Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Responsible Hate Anthem)
Soon you’ll be burning orphanages down,
Watching ashes scattering all over town,
And when the smoke gets too close to the ground,
You’ll see blue trampling over grey and green over brown.
And you’ll be cutting ears off of dead men,
Pumping shells into the carcass for hours on end,
Then you’ll swear that we’ve always been friends,
And be unable to conceive it could ever happen again.
Of course, you have never been to blame for the various horrible things that you did.
You may have gotten away with them too, if not for those meddling kids.
The lump in your throat, the ache in your bones,
They are nobody’s fault but your own.
And whatever amount you paid,
For your many distractions, well, it was too much,
And at the end of the day,
To whatever extent that you hate yourself, it isn’t enough.
And we can no longer afford,
Waiting for someone to lift this terrible swift sword.
In our basements, we all look so bored;
We’ve never seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
There will be parties, there will be fun,
There’ll be tall gallows for everyone.
And we will all be sleeping easy
Upon the sinking of the sun.
But there’s only one dream that I keep close,
And it’s the one of my hand at your throat.
I will not deny my humanity.
I’ll be rolling in it like a pig in feces,
Because there’s no other integrity
In awaiting the demise of our species.
May you endure every indignity knowing all the while that life will go on,
And when it ends, may have nothing to say, except that it took too long,
And may I be there somehow,
Asking, “Where are all of your friends now?”
notes:
The title is a reference to “Richard”, a song by Billy Bragg, which includes the lines, “There will be parties, there will be fun / There will be prizes for everyone.” It’s also a play by Shakespeare, like Titus Andronicus. Multi-layered!
The stanza about the “terrible swift sword” is a reference to the Civil War song, Battle Hymn of the Republic.
“You may have gotten away with them too, if not for those meddling kids.” – Scooby Doo, yo