September 21 – On This Day

Benedict Arnold committed treason
(that was wrong back in the day)
He felt he had a pretty good reason:
“Theater” shouldn’t be spelled that way

Burgundy changes sides in the “Hundred Years’ War”:
“It’s been eighty years, let’s try a new plan!”
Some must have forgotten what they were fighting for
As will our great grandchildren in Afghanistan

The Second Opium War was raging
Then everyone got foggy and fuzzy
Now again the battle is blazing
From New Hampshire to Kentucky

France abolishes the monarchy
And while king and queen were no longer divine
It stopped short of what what we want to see:
The absolute abolition of mime

Holst comes to the planet
Covered in blood – Stephen King
Bilbo starts his quest for The Ring
Flo-Jo ran the gamut

Without this day, no Ethan Coen
No cult of The Dude as Buddha
With just Ethan, we would have this koan:
what is the look of a one-Coen oeuvre?

The poet Kay Ryan arrives
Her work rehabilitates cliches
But still some limp and survive:
Walter Brennan bought the farm today

It’s the birthday of father of science fiction:
“The Invisible Man”, H.G. Wells
“The War of the Worlds” is an apt prediction
When America bought what a con man sells

Chuck Jones comes in search of a pen
And Wile E. Coyote is his gift to us
Roadrunner eludes time and again
Move over Sisyphus

Light and dark nearly balance today
Leonard Cohen and Virgil were delivered
And in 1942, in the Ukraine gray
2,588 Jews – their blood a river

Darkness: Letelier killed in DC
Marcos brings on the night
Light: Bill Murray comes to be
Time is stuck till we get it right