Four-and-Twenty

by Tommy George

Birds of black feather may wish to attend
memorial services for fallen friends
sent to pop merrily out of a pie
chirping a tune, and then wasting their guys.

Black-ops turned tragic when agents discovered
two dozen dead birds beneath the crust smothered

O, Four and Twenty, remember them well!
Patriot wings fluttering scared as hell,
the horror of  twenty-four burning blackbirds
a-cry in the kiln, all their chirping unheard,
their mission forfeited by dying in pie,
twenty-four operatives lost to the sky.

Sing a song of justice!  Court-martial, begin!
Your lie's been discovered; you're guilty as sin.
The two-dozen birds you assigned to the op
never could sing in that misguided flop.
God knows what else that you have buried in there,
what skeletons in your Skull and Bones lair.

You skyjacked a country on leveraged wings
to prove to the world you could make the dead sing.
When smoldering corpses produced not a note,
Your Uncle Dick hid himself deep in one throat,
falsetto-piping his misinformation.
The outpouring of tears inundated a nation,
caused by the stench of your Uncle Dick's breath
Singing an ethos of lawless intent.

O! Four-and-twenty!  Look not to the sky
when black-as-hell tactics turn up in the pie.