When charismatic indecency carries the day
There’s not much comfort in the ancient cult
That says the dance of misrule always prances
At its one frantic ball—seems like forever
Until the music stops, the flags come down,
And ordinary corruption comes back, refreshed
In laughter. “Hitler has only got one ball.”
Misrule, ha ha. But tell it to the victims:
Millions at the time and millions more today
And everyone ever since, forever, a victim?
Long-ago bumper sticker, my naive, glib
Heart in the right place: Resist Authority.
The charismatic indecency that carries
The day this year this time is not the antic
Indecency of Harpo with scissors to snip
My necktie if I am Simon the Pharisee
Who invited Jesus to supper, when Jesus favored
The sinner who brought expensive perfume to wash
His feet—and Simon wondered, was it proper?
Excuse the prig, bless Harpo, bless the sinner.
God knows what’s in our nature, she used her hair.
He squeezed a horn and chased a squealing woman
Across the movie set. We laughed. The horse
At the feast of Saturn rode the master’s back.
Bless the anonymous indecent Carnival lyrics
To the “Colonel Bogey March,” and all the better
Knowing there never was a Colonel Bogey:
“Himmler had something similar.” Prisoners of war
Whistle the tune in Bridge on the River Kwai,
“And Goebbels had no balls at all,” but no—No,
This time, the very opposites themselves
Reverse the cult of misrule itself undone
Down to the altar. The European tribes
Crowned for one day a fool a goat a chicken,
To give the finger to a horned or strutting god.
Sometimes the blond brutes even ate the chicken.
Even the parody of order is all balled up.
And if it has happened before, all the less reason
Or more to wonder or shrug at whatever charisma
Of darker or dumber indecency carries the day.
This poem appears in the April 2026 print edition.
