YouLoveMe

Radicals should ally 'gainst the center, And at the same time, appreciate it, One should be a builder, not a venter, Better to love one's state than to hate it. Much of "'Mer'can Utop'ia" leaves me cold, Milit'rized work is not at all my thing, But I like its bold bluff and its final fold, Its invitation for freedom to ring. "Well if they don't want to join the army, Let them form a political party," The fight for Levi'than drives me barmy,  Let's build statelets both heady and hearty. Statelets for sex and puritanism, Statelets for markets and socialism.

Post-Whitney I walk to 192, I skim the start of "'Mer'can Utop'ia,"  Pow'r moves to networks, top-down rule's through, Sounds good!  I'll buy it, buck my myop'ia. The idea of drafting everyone's cute, It's a different path to socialism, It's another sole on tyranny's boot! It would lead us to dull dank abysm! So I feel, but I feel something else too, His gov's fine, if you can opt out of it, Let's not fight over which form of rule's true, Choice of law is right, there's no doubt of it. Let's instantiate a dream of shared pow'r, Where dreamers of all kinds can have our hour.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing, It's greedy, it wants to appropriate, The foot is not satisfied with being, It's restless, movement is its opiate. Jennifer Packer draws well-defined eyes, And specializes in columnar feet, Faces that out of wat'ry gray arise, Vagueness turned to clarity, luke to heat. An issue with all-encompassing art, Like the old-time sonnets that I'm writing, Ev'rything's filled in, there's no missing part, I find Ms. Packer's spaces inviting. Art makes me a less unhappy fella, I'll buy Becky a Calder umbrella.

In the puzzle the clue's "Shakespeare, for one," I write in the answer, it's SONNETEER, It's fill, it's nothing like the theme's bright sun, But it brings sparking joy to morning drear. Happiness recurs with Rex's review,  He notes the very word that brought me joy, How nice to be aligned, 'stead of askew, In unwrapping a verbal Christmas toy. It's odd 'bout Rex's online commun'ty, We're puzzlers joined in irenic ire, We dis our mad leader with impun'ty, We benefit from be'ing lit by his fire. Rex and I are raging, we dis'gree 'bout Will, Our masters Shortz and Shakespeare are qui'et, still.

In our land teachers take money for grades, Women leave to work as escorts and maids, Why the calm?  Why no shatt'ring eruption? We see virtue alongside corruption. Many of us see you as serfs of pow'r, Running tiny-toed on a hamster wheel, You live in a cage, we live in a bow'r, You maximize, we dance a messy reel. In our land we're proud of the rule of law, Of clean cities and speedy autobahns, Our rat races are red in tooth and claw, But it's nice to have fewer grifts and cons. To make a new home, we shouldn't have to leave, Let's have Kyiv in Koln, let's have Koln in Kyiv. Let's have Kyiv in Koln, let's have Koln in Kyiv, We should all have choice, we shouldn't have to leave.

Your mis'ry was deep my beloved one, You walked with your pockets weighted with stone, I'm more superficial and prone to run, Away from Franklin, to pick up the phone. You and Vita fell out politic'ly, Not us!   Three Guineas is my true Bible, I love you lyric'ly and critic'ly,  A word against you I treat as libel. I 'gree we Americans are shallow, The Shenando'ah's not as deep as the Ouse, But there's much to be said for the callow, We can laugh and sport in my woodland house. To be always with you dear Virginia! To never have to say, "Abyssinia."

Was Massachusetts right, Virginia wrong? I knew that was the case in our own time, I knew that all men for liberty long, I knew that slav'ry was damnable crime. And yet I believe Virginia was right, Right in making America tragic, Bringing dark brilliance through slavery's blight, Making our country home to Black magic. Adams, my friend, we're two hundred years gone, Your state was correct, mine was felon'ious, But my Southern evil birthed a new dawn, Truth's ever rooted in what's erron'eous. It's good with Martha but I miss Sally, I'd like to kiss her 'gain in the galley.

How do I love you?  Let me count the ways, I worship you and Mrs. Dalloway, I eagerly go with you to new plays, I'll retire with you, forever I'll stay. Do I let you down?   Let me count the ways, At your parties I make nice to ladies, I am sometimes insincere with my praise, My arts of love are the arts of Hades. Next year will be forty years since we met, We're a picture of domesticity, But then again our pattern's never set, Our drama features much plasticity. Sometimes you're Leonard and I'm Virginia, We switch the roles in our co-dominia.

Our race is ruled by the function'ly mad, Maybe that was the key to our success, The death of the Neanderthals was bad, Perhaps they lacked our pressured wild duress. Within the souls of some of us is fear, A sense we might be mad as a hatter, We escape that sense with logic that's clear, With telling tales to persuade and flatter. In school our compensations win awards, In high-level jobs we're ubiquitous, We're great at turning ploughshares into swords, In our souls is something iniquitous. The problem's not that we're partly crazy, It's that we lie: we make the truth hazy.