David Brooks, or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment.

Left Behinds is proud to publish an original poem by our dear friend Eustacia Vye: a version of Kubla Khan for Tom Friedman's dearest colleague.



In Exurbia did David Brooks
A classless freedom dome decree:
Where profs and hipsters deep in books
And soccer moms and Wasps and kooks
Could live in harmony.
Or rather, in adjacent trenches
Sorted by consumer penchants.
Each latte-drinking bobo her own mentor
In the tribal meritocracy.
For every car on Paradise Drive, an emperor
Of his condo and his SUV.

But O! that deep romantic quagmire underneath
The gated hills and dales of Times Select!
A savage place! A grisly, lawless fief
Where democratic ideals come to grief
By Zarqawi wailing for his warrior sect!
Aghast, the man of destiny starts stressing-
This Brooks declares it crushingly depressing.
Like Bam-Bam, we knew not our power.
But we prosper in the future tense, the coming hour,
And still we'll live inside the Paradise Spell
Unbroken by some far-off, fresh hell.
We'll fight our wide-eyed virtue like infection,
Regain our weedless stretches of soft perfection.
Behold the vast Euphrates, venturing
Through destined fairways, the river ran-
As a flow of change to speed a master plan.
A project for a new American century.
And 'mid this tumult David heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

A Shangri-La democracy
He saw reflected on the waves;
A shining city on a hill, besieged
By spelunkers of bin Laden's caves,
'Twould yet beget a revolution,
A freedom dome with a constitution.
Condoleeza with a PowerPoint
In a presentation once he saw:
It was the neocons' maid,
And on her PowerPoint she played,
Lamenting Tora Bora.
Could he revive within him
Her trembling battle cry?
To such a deep delight 'twould win him
That with columns he will vie
To build that dome from air,
That freedom dome! at any price!
And forward-thinkers cheer them there.
And nattering nabobs will cry, Beware!
The Cheney sneer, the Rummy glare!
Deciders know to trust in Christ,
Stay upbeat when your numbers dip:
A happy smile will part your lips
To drink the milk of Paradise.




Tags: news and politics, culture, new york times, david brooks, thomas friedman