Poem By David J. Thompson

Why Bosses Always Have To Be Such Assholes

It’s bad enough that we’ve been fighting here outside Troy
now it seems like forever to get that whore Helen back 
for his brother Menelaus, but now we got  got guys dropping 
like flies from this damn plague and everybody’s gagging
on the smell of all the corpses we’ve been burning,
but then  Agammenon and Achilles had to go and get 
into it real bad again today about women, of course.
That king asshole Agamemnon starts some of his bullshit 
about how he’s willing give his little piece of tail Chryseis  back 
to appease Apollo even though, according to him, she’s as cool
as his old lady Clytemnestra back at home because, he says, 
our safety is his biggest concern.  His biggest concern? 
Do you believe that shit? So, then, at least Achilles has the balls 
to call him on it in front of everyone, but then king bullshit says
he always gets cheated on the stuff we win in battle, so he’s going
to take Achilles’ chick Briseis for his own.  Well, I thought for sure 
Achilles was going to pull out his sword and kill that dickhead right 
then and there, but he didn’t, something, probably some god
or something, seemed to tell him no.  So, then that old fart 
Nestor gets up and, as usual, I thought he’d never shut up, but, 
I gotta give him credit, he did manage to calm both their asses down.  

Agamemnon put Chryseis on a ship with Odysseus to go back 
to her dad, wherever the hell that is, then sent some muscle, you knew 
that chickenshit wouldn’t go himself, over to Achilles’ ships 
to get Briseis. Well, we thought some bad shit might go down 
because Achilles really digs her and no wonder with her gorgeous hair, 
but he’s nowhere to be seen and he leaves his best buddy Patroclus 
(don’t get me started on that screwy relationship) to hand her over.

The plague seems to have let up, that’s good, but now we got mists 
coming down from the mountains so heavy we can’t see a goddamn thing.
So, we’re expecting that badass Hector and the whole fucking Trojan army
to be on us with blades flashing at any moment. And what do we got? 
They say Achilles is down the beach crying somewhere, Odysseus is gone 
at sea with that Chryseis chick and god knows when he’ll be back with the way 
Poseidon hates him so much, and Agamemnon’s way too busy screwing
Briseis back at his tent to realize we’re about to get a serious ass kicking.
I’d like to know why bosses always have to be such assholes, but I guess
only the gods can answer a question as tough as that, even though they’re
easily the biggest bosses of all.