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The Lilliputians Confront Elon Musk

One giant has thoughts that are new and transcendent,
It’s clearly a sign that he’s too independent.
He claims that he’s bringing electrification
of cars, and affordable space exploration.

It’s right that we fear disingenuous giants
since we can’t be certain of their full compliance.
They pose a great danger to us Lilliputians,
so we implement our time-tested solutions.

At first, we’ll engage in some simple name-calling,
which works best with names that are really appalling.
Our media friends help relentlessly batter
the giant since they know that truth doesn’t matter.

We hope that name-calling will work to retrain him
but if it does not, then we have to restrain him.
Experience shows the best means of containment
for giants is typically legal arraignment.

We have a large cadre of Lilliput judges
and worked to make sure we found each judge who fudges
what’s written quite plainly in our constitution.
Each one loves injunctions and harsh persecution.

Our spies give alerts when thought crimes are committed,
which we cancel since such thoughts can’t be permitted.
For Lilliput’s sake, we must crack down with zeal on
all giants, especially that one named Elon.

We’d not found a thing we could not cut a deal on
until we found out we could not pressure Elon.
He doesn’t care which Lilliputian he stresses,
and Doesn’t Oblige Governmental Excesses.

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Tyree The Cannibal

Tyree Smith admitted to killing a man with a hatchet in 2011,
and then eating parts of his body while sipping saki. Tyree
was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but was committed
to spend 60 years in a psychiatric hospital. He was granted
“conditional release” on February 22, 2025.

We have one thing in common, we all fear the specter
of killers who eat us, like Hannibal Lecter.
In twenty-eleven, a man was discovered
and parts of his body were never recovered.
That man closed his door, but perhaps didn’t latch it,
so Tyree Smith entered and struck with his hatchet,
then ate brains and eyeballs that he paired with saki,
perhaps he had flavored them with teriyaki?

The Court ruled he couldn’t make rational choices.
He couldn’t not listen to his inner voices.
Not guilty, but still, sixty years of confinement
with treatments to fix Tyree’s mental alignment
seemed like an imperfect, but alright conclusion.
At least we’d sleep well with Tyree in seclusion.
Connecticut doctors have done what’s amazing,
and led Tyree down the new trail they’ve been blazing.

The Board’s fully certain they’re done with his healing.
They’ve banished the demons with which he was dealing.
He was just released, but there were some conditions,
he had to give up his flesh-eating ambitions.
A few, seeking sound bites, said it was outrageous
but they fail to see it was really courageous
to demonstrate love, and to be so forgiving
by letting him live where no Board member’s living.

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Warren Bonham is a private equity investor who lives in Southlake, Texas.

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3 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Warren, those are two great poems that pack cultural punches of rare quality. You are so right about Elon Musk and the Lilliputians of society including the judges who attempt to place restraining orders on his lawful responsibilities and activities. The humorous satire in both poems is a fitting and powerful approach to castigating the objects of ire and remonstrate against their opinions and abject failures to protect us from the wolves. Tyree has essentially escaped a sixty-year term of removal from society for an eleven-year release from responsibility. I applaud your wonderful poems with detailed insights into the cases of both Elon and Tyree.

    Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    Elon Musk is one of those full-spectrum geniuses and innovators who appear only a few times in every century. Those who oppose him and hate him are Lilliputians, but with this difference — Swift’s Lilliputians were for the most part rational and humane, but the Lilliputians who attack Musk are malicious and toxic vermin.

    As for the cannibal Tyree Smith, let’s just wait a few months and see whom he murders next. As Bonham suggests, it’s a sure bet it won’t be one of the brainless Board that has stupidly released him.

    Reply
  3. Margaret Coats

    Excellent artistry on current topics, Warren. The poem on Musk is a fine fit for Gulliver in Lilliput–with the differences in psyche noted by Joe Salemi. Musk is a real-life figure much larger than Gulliver, while those badgering him are small compared to Lilliputians. They are many, however. In my area, Friday was a day for activist-organized demonstrations at various places. Noisy rage had forgotten Trump to focus on Musk, and I’m sorry to say I forgot the little I heard. You’ve done well to identify his important characteristic as being unmoved by pressure.

    Checking on Tyree Smith’s age, I see he is not yet 50 years old. He butchered a 43-year-old man who might have had many years left, but it looks like those years have been gladly given to the killer. Maybe he cannot live where those who released him reside, but it’s a big world.

    Reply

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