Heads of state hyperventilating

British election today; elder daughter has probably already hit her local polling place. So-called Independence Day in the States, with the fall-out of the disasterous Trump/Biden debate, which I tried so hard to ignore - but it's everywhere. 

And today, a columnist in the Guardian, of all places, suggested the United Kingdom should be arming, because Trump was going to win in November, and he worships Vladmir Putin.

This is a catchy song. A bit depressing, but catchy. The sheriff disappeared. 

He drove in a doomed Corvette. 

Helen was in the passenger seat eating melon and spitting out the seeds, 

Feeling happy to be alone,

but still tuning a saxophone as cold as stone. 

She said: "This is what the apocalypse will look like: 

A tornado with human eyes, 

Poisoned birdbaths, and torrents of chemical rain, 

Like the heads of state hyperventilating in clouds of methane, 

Sundown on the human heart. 

And this is what the apocalypse will sound like, 

But it will be loud as a mushroom cloud. 

It will sound like 'Final Jeopardy', 

But somehow be ghostly like a glockenspiel, 

Like the testing of bombs, or the tapping of stiletto heels. 

It will sound like jazz - jazz jazz jazz - jazz on the autobahn." 

The sheriff disagreed. 

He tried to make the distinction 

Between death and extinction.

They stopped off at a place called Hamburger Heaven to grab a bite to eat, 

But Helen had no appetite; she just drank a 7 Up 

While the sheriff tapped his coffee cup to a distant beat. 

"It won't look like those old frescoes - man I don't think so. 

There will be no angels with swords - man I don't think so. 

No jubilant beings in the sky above - man I don't think so. 

And it won't look like those old movies neither. 

There will be no drag racing through the bombed out streets neither. 

No shareholders will be orbiting the earth, man, neither. 

It will be hard to recognise each other through our oxygen masks. 

The successful sons of businessmen will set their desks on fire, 

While five star generals of the free world weep in the oil-choked tide. 

It won't sound like jazz - jazz jazz jazz - jazz on the autobahn." 

 

They agreed to disagree. 

They zoomed off in a doomed Corvette. 

The sheriff couldn't recall feeling this way his entire life, 

As he drove through the principalities of unreality 

On the run with somebody else's wife, 

The heiress of Texas oil. 

'What is freedom?' he thought. 

'Is it to be empty of desire? 

Is it to find everything I've lost or have been in search of? 

Or is it to return to the things to which there is no more returning?

Does it feel like jazz - jazz jazz jazz - jazz on the autobahn?'