¡Turistas!

"They're here, those numbskull wretches who plague us every day in their thousands and their tens of thousands!

"And yet they only want to experience what we’ve got, drawn to it by our own stories. How right Guilhelmus Rogerius was, who, it is said, never missed a good opportunity to shut up!

"What's to be done? All that’s left to our people now is bilking and overcharging these "tourists," who sweep all before them, but can never know the sweetness of life that you and I, cara mia, foolishly took for granted, prima della rivoluzione."—Athaulf, king of the Visigoths, to his princess bride Galla Placidia, ca. 412–13 CE

Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, Ataúlfo (1858), Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Visigothic leader Athaulf, or Adolf, who hoped to restore Western civilization, was murdered in Barcelona in 415 CE while taking a dip. Airbnb agents had reportedly been seen in the vicinity. Paulus Orosius, Historiarum adversus paganos libri VII / Seven Books of Histories against the Pagans.

Ubu Père et Fils

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.—

Alfred Jarry, Ubu Roi (1896)

He grins and shows his wounded ear.

He hears and shows his wounded grin.

No matter what the angels fear

There’s no getting rid of him.

No matter what’s to demons dear,

Transfusion's in the regal line,

Turns tepid ichor into blood.

And in the spring hillbillies bud.

He turning says, Why, come on in,

The gore's just fine! Come in now,

See my dauphin swim!

There's lots of time before the flood

Sets fire—even to the mud.

Confusion all, both bright and dim!

Note: This poem assumed that vice-presidential candidate J. D. ("Butternut")* Vance's claim to be an Appalachian hillbilly in his book Hillbilly Elegy was valid. But evidently that is not the case—see https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-trump-vp-appalachia-rcna162105.

*A nickname apparently applied to him in his native Ohio.

Let's Pretend

The Mad Gardener, drawn by Harry Furniss

He thought he saw a Garden-Door

That opened with a key:

He looked again, and found it was

A double Rule of Three:

“And all its mystery,” he said,

“Is clear as day to me!”

—Lewis Carroll, “The Mad Gardener’s Song” in Sylvie and Bruno (1889)

Let’s pretend we’re happy.

Let’s pretend we’re sane.

Let’s pretend depression’s

Just “skin in the game.”

Let’s pretend democracy

Is what we practice here;

Not genocide and apartheid

For those we need not fear.

A million elsewhere starving—

It’s after all their right.

Thousands blown to fragments—

But do it out of sight!

We multiply together,

We cross our hearts and die,

Just like all those others

Now gone without a sigh.