"Consider Yourself"—My Arse!

I've struggled like hell to correct a rhythmic error in the draft parody of Consider Yourself, and to come up with another release and ending, cursing all the while the original; so free-and-easy, despite its dense internal rhymes. Prolonged contemplation of Bart's lyric gives me an illusory feeling that I know where he made little compromises when the sounds and the sense wouldn't cooperate, and how he felt when he'd finished and found that he'd produced immaculate transparencies like:

Nobody tries to be
La-di-dah or uppity;
There's a cup o' tea
For all—
Only it's wise to be
Handy with the rolling-pin,
When the landlord comes to call.

Me, I've ended up with something turgid, incohesive and, at one point, downright inexplicable. And the odd part is that the better bits are those written in haste. It's often the way. Oh, well:

Consider the War
Half-won.
Consider the rest
Merely formality.
It's going along
Just swell!
We're sure
You're
Wondering how to tell.

Consider the dead:
Not bad!
A coupla thou;
Nothing to squawk about.
The people are free—
And yes!
It's true!
We
Torture 'em less and less!

If you're a bit verklemmt, Call it "empty victory—
Contradictory,
At best";
But if you guys are wise,
Memorize
The Party Line,
'Cause it will. be. on. the. test.

Consider the facts!
. . . Or not.
It's no-never-mind
To us.
For, after we eliminate dissent, mein Gott!
There isn't a lot
To discuss.

* * * *

How is our mopping-up,
Vis-à-vis Guantánamo?
Would Geronimo
Approve?
Why are we propping up
Cockamamie governments?
Why does France support the Louvre?

Consider the cash
Well-spent.
We'd do it again—
Indeed!
And when the thing collapses like a Baghdad tent,
We'll do it again,
Guaranteed!

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov