John Faust's Job Interview

          

                      

            

Temptation Syncopation

I have nothing to say of suns or worlds.

I cannot show you the rivers of light.

But a neat white rose plugs my buttonhole

And the chain of being, time’s bauble,

Hangs on a vest with my academic medals.

Come fly on my cloak

Above Blue Earth:

I’ll show you the sights, the local wonders

(My wardrobe’s no joke––

Ermine collar worth

Big dollars––don’t pull on it––such blunders!)

See History performed

By a cast of millions

See palaces reborn

As mansions worth billions

Preview three prescient

Blockbusters

(Senescent

Clock-dusters)

Les Miz, Annie and Rent:

Poverty to a tune

That’s heaven sent

Pop opera that’s darin’

In a setting Sub-Saharan

Weary of hoi polloi?

You find their customs strange?

Prefer a ticket exchange?

I’ll see what I can arrange.

Let’s fly higher

Away from the crowd

Up to the stratosphere

Above the uncertainty cloud

Lean over and have a look-see

I promise you won’t fall––

(Not yet; not till it’s meant to be:

The greatest Fall of All.)

Look at shaded topography

Jaded by political geography.

Observe the contours of city and town,

Settlements rising up all around:

Tidy grids and power bids.

Get an education

                                               In prestidigitation.

                                               Distract benighted congregations

                                               Needing basic alimentation

                                               For themselves and

                                               Future generations.

                                                          •••

You’ll see how borders

Are made and changed,

How cities are born

And destroyed and renamed.

Germany East and West

Korea North and South

Dresden – shattered porcelain,

Ashes in the mouth

Saint Petersburg, Leningrad,

Saint Peter’s once again;

Tsaritsyn to Stalingrad to

Volgograd: renamed

For Stalin’s sins.

Stalingrad’s a great battle’s name:

Honor’s not for the man who lied

But for the men who fought and died.

And Novgorod’s

A Kievan museum.

Here’s resurrected Karlsbad:

Chic new spa with a new name:

Re-brander’s mind game.

Refurbished baths

For washing away the past

For scrubbing cobbles

Till the water runs clear at last

                                             

          New street maps for forgetting

                                              Old streets with quiet trees

                                              Old men sitting,

                                              Rubbing their knees,

                                              Drinking hot coffee

                                              In the autumn breeze

Lean over my shoulder:

Your head won’t spin

As though you saw cascading

White rivers.

I promise that all you see

Will be as true as photography.

See client states

Abate

Watch troubled empires rise

On terra firma

Zimbabwe out of Rhodesia

Myanmar from Burma

Iran from the land

Of Arabian Nights

(Bedtime story

Thrills and frights!)

See cartographers’ 
Anomalies

Worthy of demographers’ 
Satirical

Homilies

Guam and Wake from Micronesia

Niobe’s Weeping Rock

On Mount Sipylos in Ancient Magnesia

Modern Malaysia from Indonesia

States born and reborn

In a darkling time:

The PRC from a nation

Suborned

(Corrupted by Europe: divided,

                                               Deformed)

Israel from Palestine,

Palestine

From re-drawn lines

Taiwan from

Mainland China

Viet Nam

North and South

From Indochina,

French redoubt

        •••

See the hungry millions swarm:

Les damnés de la terre

Wretched of the Earth

To you lot,

Prisoners of Care

Did I say prisoners?

Citizens of the world,

More like,

Clients and customers,

They are,

And the customer’s

Always right

Abject migrants

Crossing Earth’s surface

Vandals and vagrants

Without a purpose

Criss-crossing Earth

Like ants on an apple––

(Bad simile, you say?

Scale and ratio off?)

We compare people

To ants every day.

What are you, a teacher–

Or some kind of toff?

Say you like action?

Look-a-here

America’s Armada

Gaining traction

See where her navy

In the name of

National security

(Irrational maturity)

Rounded the pillars of

Herakles: the hero

Who knew the shame of

Midlife madness –

What a zero.

          •••

Insane Politicians!

What a three-ring circus!

Slather on the make-up,

Besmirk us

With the meretricious art of

Vain morticians

Oh my God!

(Or should I say, omg!)

Under the Big Top

A diplomat

Has slipped from the high trapeze

Did I say diplomat?

I meant an acrobat,

No, it’s––

A ruffled clown

Down

On his padded knees

Gesticulating

                                               To appease

And there in the ring

With the Bengal Tiger

A trainer

From Chad,

Or is it Niger?

No matter.

Bespattered

With gore

Was the

Keeper of yore

This trainer?

No-brainer!

On the run,

Smuggled guns

And opted to bring

                                              A whip with a sting

                                                            •••

                                                                                                               

Come up for air:

Your head won’t spin

As though you’d burst through

Tumbling white water.

I promise – everything you’ve seen

Is as real as a 3D picture

On the big screen.

Now that you’ve seen

Earthly dystopia,

Want to rule Earth?

(With your myopia?)

Come, be a builder of nations,

Year-round Santa Claus

(A major cause

Of perturbation)

Will you shepherd the masses?                                                                                    

Will you lead?

Wear a crown

Upon your head?

Will you rule them?

Hearken! Take heed!

That great renown

Not cede to dread.

Crown upon head

Head of State

Gem-studded bandage

Wrapped round noble pate

Be their ruler

And requite thee

With wealth prodigious.

With mace and scepter

Bedight thee,

And with tokens prestigious.

And when I lay thee down to rest

In the black velvet night

Dream of a future

Under construction.

In the meantime our lemurs

Will raise your monument.