Man Who Would Be King Poem by gershon hepner

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING


Though superstitions may not soothe
as much as they once did, we blunder,
and wander far away from truth,
still dazzled by the wonder
created by misinformation
reaching us with speed of light
on the Internet, a nation
that can no longer keep in sight
the wisdom of the past, inventing
its idols from the silver screen,
and a world of pop dementing
its listeners, who are far more keen
on beat and volume than on sense,
which used to characterize the tunes.
We all live in the present tense,
while sands of past time are like dunes
the wind has swept away. We’ve swept
away most superstition, but
the sense of wonder we’ve not kept,
now empty shells without a nut,
Not skeptical like David Hume.
but of what’s trendy credulous,
we are indifferent to doom,
and crazed by being credulous.

It isn’t just the silver screen
and world of rock that brings us gods
whom we would worship, we have been
in politics defying odds,
betting on obscure Obama,
trump card idolized to save
the country as its reprogrammer,
but now we know we have to waive
trust just like superstition and,
no longer dazzled by Boy Wonder,
reverse the popular demand
that brought the population under
his leadership-where is it, by
the way? -remembering he’s just
a man, not God or devil. I
in three of the above don’t trust,
which leaves me with no source of hope,
except a trust which is quite blind,
a feeling that we’ll somehow cope
by leaving all the three behind.

Inspired by an Op-Ed by Bret Stephens (“The Man Who Would Be King, ” WSJ,6/22/10) . He compares Obama to Kipling’s Daniel Dravot of “Th Man Who Would Be King” (“Neither God nor devil, but a man”) and quotes David Hume: “The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.”

In “Politics as a Vocation, ” Max Weber observed that ultimately there are only two kinds of deadly sins in politics: lack of objectivity and-often but not always identical with it-irresponsibility. Vanity, the need to stand in the foreground as clearly as possible, strongly tempts the politician to commit one or both of these sins.” Standing in the foreground has been the story of Mr. Obama’s career. When its history is written, the marvel will be how quickly he seduced a nation, and how quickly he lost it. There’s really no marvel at all. He is, or was, the man who would be king.

6/22/10, revised 1/20/12 #9084