The Last Words of Mister Misanthrope

The Last Words of Mister Misanthrope

by A Montclair writer you know named Gerard

The flu didn't get me, not the bird flu

or the swine flu or any other flu.

The free flu shots didn't get me either.

The monster in the closet didn't get me.

The monster under the bed didn't get me.

El Coyote and Al Qaeda and the latest band

of omnipotent cartoon villains didn't get me.

The pods didn't get me. But they
seem to have gotten everyone else.

The disease called Polio didn't get me.
The disease called Normal didn't get me.

The Pledge of Allegiance didn't get me.

Nationalism didn't get me, nor did patriotism

nor did the sad misguided belief

that one is bad and the other is good.

The fluoride laced water didn't get me.

The chem-trails didn't get me.

The poison mushrooms didn't get me.

The poison thoughts didn't get me.

Wrong, the poison thoughts get all of us.

Diet soda didn't get me.

Gluten free didn't get me.

The latest greatest paradigm didn't get me.

The Bubonic Plague didn't get me.

The Black Death didn't get me.

The Red Scare didn't get me.

The Green Revolution didn't get me.

The Blue Danube didn't get me.

The yellow margarine didn't get me.

Agent Orange didn't get me.

Thalidomide didn't get me, but
it turned children into Diane Arbus oddities.
Thorazine didn't get me.
I shuffle because I'm tired.
Prozac didn't get me.

The yellow ribbons didn't get me.

The red and green states and black

and white thinking didn't get me.

The silver lining didn't get me.

The bible didn't get me.

The national anthem didn't get me.

War fever didn't get me.

Sports fever didn't get me.

The Mayan Prophecy didn't get me.

The Catholic Church didn't get me,

But Catholic school ended

much in me that might have been.

I learned how to read and how to hate myself.

I learned how to hate and how to read myself.

Quetzalcoatl didn't get me.

The religion of nine-eleven didn't get me.

OSHA didn't get me.

FDR didn't get me.

The FDA didn't get me.

The FBI didn't get me,

but I suspect the CIA got all of us.

All natural didn't get me.
Organic didn't get me.

Tragedy and hope didn't get me.

Hope and change didn't get me.

Hocus pocus didn't get me.

Beatlemania didn't get me.

Obama-mania didn't get me.

Political correctness didn't get me.

We hold these truths to be self evident didn't get me.

Four score and seven years ago didn't get me. 

We have nothing to fear but fear itself didn't get me.

Excuse me sir but that doesn't even make sense.

Ask what you can do for your country didn't get me.

I have no country, only that strange place called the past.

I like it there because they say and do other things there.

They even speak differently and wear different costumes.

You're either with us or with the terrorists didn't get me.

But I am no longer waiting for the grown-ups

to stop believing in the Boogie Man.

But something must have gotten me,
something, I know not what.

I lived but failed to thrive.

I survived but failed to live.