Vulpine Credo
Our followers have formed their views,
Don’t disappoint them with the news.
The prudent journalist omits
Disturbing and unpleasant bits.
Salacious tales about our hero
Will gain us rather less than zero.
Trumpet denials! Lightly vault
Over the judgment of assault.
Because our world is out of kilter
An editor must always filter.
Unless you carefully restrain
Yourself, you’ll cause our people pain.
You should not feel obliged to mention
Points that increase their hypertension.
False “honesty” holds nothing back,
And sparks a fatal heart attack.
The truth about our universe
Spreads misery … and even worse …
When all the facts are on display
Our viewers tend to drift away.
First principle: We must decline
To compromise the bottom line.
Philip Kitcher spent his early years in England, where he started scribbling verses. After a half-century hiatus, spent teaching philosophy in the USA and writing far too many fat books on philosophical topics, he has returned to his attempts at versifying. Some results of these efforts have previously appeared; online in Light (Poems of the Week), in Lighten Up Online, and in Politics/Letters; in print in The Hudson Review, and in the pandemic-inspired collection Voices in Solitude.