Brow of Discernment

The kind of man that says unexceptionable and significations without irony
His every pronouncement comes weighted with ballast and profundity
The stylized pomp is deadly earnest and has no end
Behold, in its full glory, the brow of discernment

The arc of his thought, it is said, bends toward the contrarian
Witness his long-standing battle against the conventional wisdom
Very important this man, and altogether immune from mistakes
Forget the previous discourse, here comes the definitive take

Dizzying opinions fervently held to all appearances
Beneath a surface layer of puffery and self importance
Self identifying as a public servant of mankind
Truth be told, he is a legend in his own mind

Much like his peers, say, the mustache of understanding
And erstwhile nemesis, the bow tie of fulsome waxing
A mouthpiece to righteous blather,
   ever prone to attacking cartoon villains
Sample accusation: unlike him,
   "no one is thinking about the children"

Aspirations of grandeur,
   capital's spokesman-in-chief
Empire's useful idiot,
   providing oligarchs comic relief
Forever flirting with the masters of the universe
Still there's something staid about him,
   he's cool's dour obverse

Paradoxically, one can point to
   a thin veneer of past competence
Before the turn to punditry,
   there were some tangible achievements
But hubris is all these days,
  riding high, he's nigh invincible
Try to pin him down though,
   you won't find a guiding principle

His stock-in-trade is outrage,
   yet he's always on the side of angels
Labels galore in his arsenal,
   he knows how to turn the tables
Throughout, he's surprisingly adept
   at knowing where the money is flowing
Mind you, he always checks first
   to see which way the wind is blowing

Backslapping repartee as befits the unctuous
His prose style never varies from the oleaginous
His days of punditry rather embody the savior complex
But when caught out, his words were "taken out of context"

Observe well,
   his penchant for bonhomie and folk wisdom is rather notable
With his idiosyncratic way with the mixed metaphor,
   he remains ever quotable
"Rising empires never sleep on blankets
   forged in the fires of benign neglect"
Car crashes have been caused
   while trying to decipher his arch concepts

Humanity is always on the precipice,
   society is always at the crossroads
Norm policing is his business,
   he's prone to pearl clutching episodes
So quick to assume the pose of the supercilious
Even as he proudly wears the badge of the incurious

After prefacing his remarks with a counterintuitive statement
Comes a nod, that's when you'll find him fully in his element
His favored weapon finally ready for deployment
Raised and furrowed, the brow of discernment

Puff, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. Self regard is everything. (spotify version)

• He's Misstra Know-It-All by Stevie Wonder
• Talking Loud and Saying Nothing by James Brown
• Legend in his own Mind by Gil Scott-Heron

See previously: A Taxonomy of Useful Idiots

File under: humour, satire, hatchet job, culture, observation, perception, rogues, useful idiots, gremlins, parasites, opportunists, ignorance, shell game, Buyer's Remorse, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log: March 24, 2022