Reveille

Where there are many chickens, the night’s over.—proverbial saying*

They claim now that the converted Khazar khanate† never was.

I think it must have done—because

coming home to roost, its chickens

have built their nests and laid their eggs so well

in the daunting dauntless state of Israel.

Indisputably, then, the plot thickens!

Khmelnytsky may have been a nasty bit of work,

but his Zaporozhians fought Pole, Swede, and Turk;

Khazars, Cossacks, and Kazakhs,

for the new Völkerwanderung are much the same:

Fodder for the patriotic game.

History, I think it was Voltaire that said,

is the BS currently ahead.

And clearly when the chicks proliferate,

of course, we cocks should celebrate.

Here, then, is your Rhodes, here dance!**

If in doubt, attend—I fear we all must—the school

of our mighty magpie Khan of Khans

. . . la bouche en cul-de-poule.

*Wo viele Hähne sind, da ist die Nacht hin. / Là où il y a beaucoup de poules, la nuit est finie.

†See Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage (1976),

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Tribe.

‡Völkerwanderung = the great migration era in which Germanic, Slavic, Finno-Ugrian, and other tribes distributed themselves around Europe, ca. 300 to 900 CE.

**"Hic Rhodus, hic salta," https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hic_Rhodus,_hic_salta:

December 18, 2024