Where Have All The Adults Gone

Circumnavigating around our Atlantic pond

All shores appear cloaked in political gloom

Major question swirling over our Sea of  Despond

Have all the adults left the room?

Are we trapped in Golding's "Lord of the Flies"

Our elected leaders gone tribally adolescent

Creating havoc their most favored enterprise

Sacrificing our future to their partisan present

Old curse: "May you live in interesting times"

The ultimate sardonic benediction

Word "interesting" surrounded by air quote signs

In the original Hanyu Chinese rendition

Today we live in interestingly troubled times

When respect's considered a synonym for weakness

When blowhard cyber bullies are enshrined

And praised for their courageous forthrightness

Here we unerringly blame the orange interloper

Few of us regard his tweets with pride

But before naming him the sole malefactor

Take a long hard look at the other side

It's a posse of piously passionate pretense

Out to negate the reality on display

Wrathful recount the mission they want to dispense

Because last election they didn't get their way

What insanity says it's politically logical

To sabotage something benefitting all your kin

Peremptorily calling a possible ally a criminal

Just before seeking an agreement with him

And speaking of being hoist by your own petard

Over there, distant relatives in a nasty divorce

Having voted to shred their EU membership card

Managing the exit's getting lost in political noise

To some outsiders, that union was always in doubt

For possibly leaching a proud people's sovereignty

Though for a time it seemed to have worked out

Through periods of goodwill and prosperity

But no relationship is completely impervious

To pressures from abroad and domestic

Phantasmagorical fears and doubts assail all us

And can make even blessed things feel caustic

Factional politicking just makes matters worse

We've learned that from those verbally incontinent

Some folks thrive only in times perverse

Without shared misery, they'll never be content

Peace and harmony merely make the media mad

They live to report the sky is falling

Given a choice between reporting what's good or bad

They focus only on issues appalling

So any real or potential cataclysm

That can be exploited by extremism mongers

To induce or inflame hatred and division

That's sweet sauce for scandal sheet purveyors

Sometimes your most charitable purpose

Is allowing your own ox to be publicly gored

Helping others ignore their tightening noose

As they pity you in schadenfreude

In my fantasy that's my justification

For the political quagmire we here publicly exhibit

We're purposely sullying our sanity reputation

So the rest of the world can relax a bit

Could that explain our apparent madness?

Are our leaders just play-pretending to be buffoons

Sadly, no, they're enjoying the political grab-ass

All of our adults really have left the room