CANTO TEN. BEN CARSON.
Up on Mount Olympus, where the real estate’s restricted,
Ben Carson has the power to have even Zeus evicted.
“These deities have never learned to pull their own darn weight!”
He says as he sends dozens crashing down to their dim fate.
Their palaces and manors, and their alabaster halls,
are razed so they can make room for some brand new shopping malls.
The mighty Carson worships toil and old Hippocrates --
His modesty forbade his visage on the smallest frieze.
‘Making your own luck’ was all the mantra he required.
Then disgruntled Zeus gave him to dream and be rewired.
In this fancy, simple Ben became a roustabout
For a carny show where crooked games he had to tout.
At the skee-ball stand he promised fortune to the brave
Who spent their money lavishly and then refused to cave.
Immovable milk bottles were set up for all the chumps --
You couldn’t knock ‘em over even using oak tree stumps.
The carny show moved constantly, one step ahead of cops
Who wanted to shut down their bait and switch extortion shops.
Their flukey ball and whack a mole were games of little chance --
Not when those canny carnies put the suckers in a trance.
And Ben was chief among them, grifting right and left with glee.
Fixing it so innocents wound up in bankruptcy.
Hiding in a mitt joint, he could see that life was skewed;
Some got all the velvet but most others just got screwed.
And then the dream was over -- Ben awoke back home again;
But the insight he had garnered burned inside him like cayenne:
Hard work could give you comfort, but there was no guarantee
That life would not defraud you and withhold prosperity.
Afterwards Ben Carson was less critical of those
Who never seemed quite able to stay up upon their toes.
He was a bit more tolerant -- but that was a mistake;
For soon his fellow trumpsmen thought him nothing but a fake.
They kicked him out of office, saying he could never be
A valid Trumpsman if he showed such hateful charity.
So he went back to doctoring, to cheating only death --
Refusing ever after to mouth any shibboleth.
(to be continued)
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