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