The Raven for this season

<p>Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, slightly beery</p><p>Over spam from some quaint and curious email retail store.</p><p>As I tapped the keyboard lightly suddenly there appeared so brightly</p><p>Images meant to fright me. Into my brain the pictures did pour.</p><p>“Tis political junk mail,” I thought, “Something to ignore.”</p><p>“Only a scam and nothing more.”</p><p>Ah, distinctly I remember it was election November</p><p>And every partisan member sought to enlist me in their war.</p><p>Anxious, I wished the battles ended. Ads political I felt offended</p><p>The reason and courtesy that had existed long before.</p><p>Nothing now but rude behavior hotly defended by true believing bores.</p><p>Only noise and nothing more.</p><p>Deep into that screen I peered, long I sat there full of fear</p><p>Logic and debate could ne’er be heard amidst the furious roar.</p><p>Televised ads of a world gone crazy, offering only ideas hazy</p><p>Arguments for thinkers lazy, were repeated by the score.</p><p>Again and again commercials screamed, and I, unable to ignore,</p><p>Wished for calm and nothing more.</p><p>But peaceful rest was not to be, a brief respite was not for me.</p><p>Moaning phantoms accompanied by dark video scores</p><p>Convinced us that evil was ascending; we must be unbending</p><p>So as to stem the country’s certain upending. Our true values we must restore.</p><p>They accused: “liberal to the core,” or “a voting record to deplore.”</p><p>My crucial vote, they said, might win the war.</p><p>And then the scenes grew even darker, earnest intent became starker</p><p>And happy hopefuls all morphed into grinning skulls galore.</p><p>Now the discontented rank-and-file no longer even tried to smile</p><p>While angry radicals riled up the troops out for blood and gore.</p><p>“Our opponents are the party of the corrupt, the thieving and more.”</p><p>“Only we can serve the patriotic and the poor.”</p><p>All at once there appeared a curious bird, who uttered not a single word</p><p>but swept into my darkened room as if from an open door.</p><p>All black and shiny it perched on a nearby chair unsettling me with its stare.</p><p>I was aware of the creature’s dark eyes and, heavy with fear, I swore.</p><p>“Tell me what thy name is on this night’s Plutonian shore.</p><p>Are you, perhaps from Baltimore?”</p><p>No sound did the ebony bird utter. It sat stock-still with nary a flutter.</p><p>Yet I could not avoid the Raven’s stare, the bird’s presence I could not ignore.</p><p>I pondered with a vain hope that perhaps it had been sent to help me cope</p><p>With the sliding downward slope of this unending political civil war.</p><p>“Will we ever return,” I asked, “to a time of friendly argument, of genial rapport?”</p><p>“Alas,” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”</p>