Borborygmus

. . . believing in his existence was rather like still seeing certain stars although they ceased to exist thousands of years ago.

—Robert Musil, The Man without Qualities (1930), on Franz Joseph I, Austrian emperor and king of Hungary (1830–1916)

Enormity’s its own just desert; it

Pays a parting price: digested by Time's

Anaconda, History, celebrity's Great

Become microbiota in the dark realm

Where deceased lobbyists best fit;

Perhaps from the gut a final rumble—

Borborygmus's last advice;

It rejected, they vanish in a trice,

Expelled to Tartarus, Hell's deep in ancient lay,

Where their tergiversating spirits bumble,

And their features fade like morning mist,

Lacking the wherewithal for any further stay.

His office, Vice-president John Nance Garner

Informed his fellow Uvalde County Texan LBJ,

One day, "warn’t worth a bucket of tepid piss.”

July 13/14, 2025