I

On Planet Orth, the laws were wise and slow;
Each wrong received a hearing and a file.
The Leader broke ten more before they’d know,
Then praised due process with a golden smile.

The court restored the people’s missing gate;
By then he’d sold the road and moved the wall.
The ruling was impeccable—and late.
The guards saluted no one there at all.

The scholars said, “The feedback loop is sound!”
(Their grants depended on this being true.)
Each answer chased the next mistake around
And always arrived late by one coup or two.

No coup was found. All statutes were obeyed.
The planet fell exactly as surveyed.

II

On Orth the votes were counted every year
By clerks whose hands were visible and clean.
The Leader warned, “Some numbers may appear
To say a thing those numbers cannot mean.”

He sent inspectors dressed in midnight gray
To guard the boxes from the people’s eyes.
They checked each voter’s feathers twice that day,
Then found suspicious beaks of foreign size.

When totals showed his party losing ground,
He praised the vote, then questioned every sum.
His loyal patriots gathered round
To keep the traitorous arithmetic dumb.

The count was fair. Its meaning was denied.
Democracy survived, embalmed with pride.

III

The visitors sent warnings into space:
“The laws still work, but cannot match the speed.”
Headquarters opened up a formal case
And asked for proof of each unlawful deed.

While forms traversed the interstellar air,
He leased the moon and privatized the night.
He charged the poor a breathing surcharge there,
Then jailed the clocks for failing to run right.

At length Command replied, “We have reviewed
The claim that government may be in doubt.
No broad systemic failure has been proved.
Stay where you are. We’ll calmly wait this out.”

They looked outside. Their planet had been sold.
“Significantly troubling,” they were told.