He read the phrase “pithiatric prattle,”
in a book given to him by a friend
only to have it explained as hysterical
rambling and then he knew for sure what
it was as he watched the Republican debate
and saw all the manic mandibular motion
with little or nothing to show for it. If
art is consonance, as that same writer
offered, the pope proved positively artful
before the US Congress while artless politic-
ians proffered, pitiful, pithiatric prattle
to frenzied folk with itching ears and not
much between them.