Inspired by “Hemispheres” by Rush (Lyrics by Neil Peart, 1978).
Hemorrhaged Fears
After “Hemispheres” by Neil Peart
I. Prelude
When the century was young
The struggle of the parties first began
Demagogues of blood and treason
Sought alone to rule Americaland.
They battled through the media
Yet still neither side would yield
The voters were divided
Every home a battlefield
Every home a battlefield
II. Patriot: Keeper of Truth
‘I bring god and family values
I bring law and order fair
Tremendous gifts beyond compare
We can build America better
I can’t make you self-aware’
‘You will save on food and shelter
Beat back the migrant swarm
Through the endless liberal storm
You can live in peace and prosper
In the world that I transform’
The people were delighted
Bestowed his kingly guise
They ran migrants from their cities
So perverse and so unwise
But one day the fields fell silent
And the cost of living grew
The need to send them packing
Seemed not to so true
The white men were consulted
And the political aisle was crossed
In quest of a progressive
To find out what they had lost
III. Progressive: Champion of Woke
‘I bring love in every fashion
LGBTQ black or white
Be gender fluid to your delight
You need only trust your feelings
Let your whim steer you right’
‘I bring virtues, I bring protest
I bring race and I bring queers
I will feed your primal fears
Throw off those chains of oppression
And conformity disappears’
The cities all were looted
And the force of change was strong
They fought against injustice
They knew love could not be wrong
Determination they had aplenty
And they fought strong for their cause
The liberals were delighted
Disregarding common laws.
But reality fell upon them
And it caught them unprepared
Bringing fools and deprivation
And the voters all despaired
IV. Polarization: The Battle of Left and Right
United States divided
As the left and right collided
The voters undecided
For so many troubled years
In a fog of hype and sneers
Their nation was torn asunder into tidy
Hemmorhaged fears
Some fought family, some fought their lover.
Most just followed tribal druthers
Their common purpose was so unclear
And consensus would not appear
Their lives were divided
Into bloody hemorrhaged fears.
Some who did not fight
Brought tales of old to light
‘My social feed scrolled on all night
For this final plight’
To the heart of Meta’s unfiltered voice
We had no choice
Spiraled through that timesuck space
To this impotent place
V. Tertius: Restorer of Balance
I have vision and a purpose
But I have no formal rite
As a disenfranchised voter
I am left and yet unright
I have grown so disaffected
That I scarcely even know
How to grow something fruitful
From these rotten seeds that we have sown
I see politicians battle on high
Civility in short supply
I cannot think, nor justify
I must prepare my battle cry…
Then all at once the melee ceased
A brief respite, a solemn peace
Politicians felt my silent cry
And ceased their folly, mystified
Patriots were astonished
Progressives thought me mad
But they heard my story further
And they wondered and were sad
Reading this from their social feed
Siloed in their hemispheres
It’s all been rendered
One big bloody hemorrhaged fear.
They pondered one brief moment
Then they turned at last to me
‘We will call you Tertius,
The party of balance you shall be’
VI. The Fear: A Unifying Dream
We can work for peace together
Since our goals are all the same
We can fumble for consensus
Without offloading all the blame
Let the sense of love be common
Let the common sense ring clear
Sensitivity
Without the absurdity.
With the left and right united under a single…
United…
Fear.
Mannino Acid 