Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And I was poised to take them both

And be two travelers, long I stood

And looked down once as far as I could

To where it bent the truth and killed the growth

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was expedient and wanted wear,

And as for that passing there

Had brought me closer to power and fame

And both that evening equally lay

In leaves no honest man had trodden black

Oh, I walked the first (and second) for another play!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a smirk

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood and I (a jerk)

Took both roads with perfidious work

And that has made all the difference

*Full disclosure:  There's a possibility that Romney himself is the true author (see below).

Maggie claims to have been in a deep trance channeling Willard "Mitt" Romney when she wrote this poem.  But I'm not so sure.  Suppose I told you Romney really did write it, that he was having just a little fun, didn't think anybody outside his immediate circle of family and rich friends would ever see it.  Suppose a bag lady (one of the 47%) found it when she was dumpster diving near his $12 million beachfront home in La Jolla, California.  Suppose it was scribbled on the back of an envelope like Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. 

Actually, that would be a lie.  There is no bag lady in the back story and Romney didn't write the poem.  Here's what really happened:  Willy Mitt found it on the sidewalk in front of his Lake Winnepesaukee vacation home in New Hampshire, threw a wild party with a juice bar that wouldn't quit, and to liven things up produced a poem he said he'd written just that afternoon and read it aloud.  But he made the mistake of leaving it on the kitchen counter.  When nobody was looking one of his guests, hoping to make a quick buck like Mitt did at Bain Capital, absconded with it.  I found it on Craigslist in Kansas City, along with a photocopy his father's birth certificate.     

Another lie.  But, hey, why not?  Telling big lies is a kind of tribute to Romney.  Maybe he didn't write the poem, but he lies like a rug – and routinely sweeps unpleasant facts under it.

To wit:  He doesn't want anybody to know that his illustrious father, the late George W. Romney, a one-time Governor of Michigan who ran for president in 1968, withdrew from the race under a cloud.  Or that questions were raised about George Romney's eligibility to be president because, as it happens, he (father George) was born in Chihuahua, Mexico.  Ouch!  In the addled minds of Republican Party leaders that would make Mitt the offspring of an illegal immigrant.  And Republicans know all to well how those Mexicans have been slipping across the border and stealing jobs from real Americans for years now.  So much for Mitt the great job creator who favors "self-deportation" and advocated a 2,000 mile high-tech fence on the Mexican border...   

In a note to me, Maggie (the person who really did write the poem) expressed a fervent wish for "people…to know what a bi-polar forked-tongue politician" Willard "Mitt" Romney really is.  And that's no lie.