HENRY KISSINGER’S CV

by Sean Murphy

David Levine's caricature of Henry Kissinger.

Ambassador:
Tainted midwife to travesty, a perverted Prometheus, bestowing agency to perfidious officials in conspicuous places.
 
Instigator:
Slick devil whispering nothing’s sweet, so many iniquitous seductions into the eager ears of meager men.
 
Bootlicker:
Fattened tongue sucking the leathered paws of a cur whose wet scent still befouls a nation’s hollow halls.
 
Confessor:
Aberrant principles unshackled by access to brokers of action breaking worlds like sadistic gods with glimmering eyes.
 
Profiteer:
Thirty pieces of soiled silver times thirty a thousand times, it profits a man immeasurably if he has no soul to lose.
 
Sloganeer:
Peace through power, clarity through chaos, obedience through atrocity, efficiency through occupation, et cetera.
 
Impregnator:
Malevolent proposals polluted by your corrupted seed, so much ruthless sperm seeking attainment in lethal deeds.
 
Clock-Ticker:
Grown engorged like an unkillable tick, the mother’s milk of abandoned empires a mainline to an obstinate heart.
 
Idolator:
Squatting on the shoulders of moral dwarves, the not-so-complex imprimatur of Napoleon your obscene escutcheon.
 
Kissinger:
This crass pageant, at long last, expired: ignominy awaits and History’s already at work, unkindly revising the Final Cut.

Sean Murphy has been publishing fiction, poetry, reviews (of music, movie, book, food), and essays on the technology industry for over twenty years. A long-time columnist for PopMatters, his work has also appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, The Good Men Project, Memoir Magazine, and elsewhere. His chapbooks The Blackened Blues (Finishing Line Press) and Rhapsodies in Blue (Kelsay Books) were published in 2021 and 2023. His next poetry collection, Kinds of Blue, and This Kind of Man, his first collection of short fiction, are forthcoming in 2024. His novel Not To Mention a Nice Life was published in 2015, followed by his first two collections of non-fiction, Murphy’s Law, Vol One and Vol. Two. He has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize, twice for Best of Net, and his book Please Talk about Me When I’m Gone was the winner of Memoir Magazine’s 2022 Memoir Prize. He served as writer-in-residence of the Noepe Center at Martha's Vineyard, and is Founding Director of 1455, a non-profit that celebrates storytelling.

OH YES HE'S THE GREAT NEGOTIATOR

by George Salamon

"'We Didn’t Really Want to Weigh In:' An author defends his decision to write a new book celebrating Henry Kissinger."

—Slate, August 15, 2018

“Oh yes I'm the great pretender / I seem to be what I'm not (you see)”

—“The Great Pretender” by Buck Ram, recorded by The Platters, 1955

Let's celebrate the new and
Forget the old Henry Kissinger.
Never mind the coup in Chile,
Too bad about the slaughter
In Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos,
Who remembers those
Tortured bodies in Indochina?
Henry was the great negotiator,
Negotiating the best deal for
Democracy, Mom and Cherry Pie.
So all you hothead moralists,
You professors of American flaws,
It's time rethink the role of
Henry Kissinger, to reevaluate,
And to revise, but not, I urge you,
To regurgitate.




George Salamon respects Henry Kissinger for never dropping that German accent. Would anybody have listened to him if he had?

A KISSINGER IS STILL A KISSINGER

by George Salamon





You must remember this
As our government bestows a kiss.
It's still the same old story
For a warmonger seeking glory.
We forget the sins of the past:
Russian Jews? Let 'em be gassed.
Cambodian women and children?
Bomb 'em by the million.
The democratic government of Chile?
We'll overthrow 'em in a jiffy.
Henry faithfully served Richard Nixon,
To whom he felt intellectually superior,
But owes his career to being up Tricky's posterior.

George Salamon has followed the exploits of Kissinger since the days both spent time in Cambridge, MA.