These are poems and fables of a particular historical moment: from late Fall, 2015, to mid-Spring, 2016. By the time you read them (if you do), you will know more than these speakers did about the significance of the seemingly momentous events unfolding during that period. But, with regard to that short time, which seemed infinitely longer, what you will find here bears witness to what many who lived through it thought and felt.
From the book:
THE DONALD TRUMP OF THE REPUBLIC
Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of the Trump
He is trampling out the riffraff
And he’ll take them to the dump
He will kick you in the balls
And then he’ll kick you in the rump
His ego’s marching on
Glory, Glory, what’s it to yuh
I’m a liar, and I’ll screw yuh
I’m the best and you will see
Once I win it’s Me, Me, Me
My ego’s marchin’ on
I have seen him at the rallies
Of a dozen barbarous states
He is fanning all the fury
Of their mean and spiteful hates
He has lied and bragged and bullied
through unspeakable debates
His lies are marching on
Glory, Glory, what’s it to yuh
I’m a liar, and I’ll screw yuh
I’m the best and you will see
Once I win it’s Me, Me, Me
My ego’s marchin’ on
He has raised a bully pulpit
For his insults and his rants
He will kick out all the migrants
He won’t give the poor a chance
He will mock the meek and crippled
As he boasts what’s in his pants
His lies go marching on
Glory, Glory, what’s it to yuh
I’m a liar, and I’ll screw yuh
I’m the best and you will see
Once I win it’s Me, Me, Me
My ego’s marchin’ on
In the heat of the Convention
He will strive to get his way
He has threatened brawls and riots
If he doesn’t win the day
Oh, may someone see the danger
And lop off his feet of clay
Lest he go marching on
Glory, Glory, what’s it to yuh
Trump’s a liar, and he’ll screw yuh
He’s a con man and a clown
And he’ll take our country down
Keep Trump from marching on!
A FAREWELL TO TRANQUILLITY
I wandered lonely as a cloud
Until I heard a roaring crowd
Emitting shrieks and hoots and bellows,
A mad mob of unruly fellows,
Presided over by a clown
Who worked them up by calling down
Rude curses, taunts, and threats of war
Which stoked their fury more and more.
I fled, yet still I wander, shaken.
What wrong sad path had Reason taken,
I thought, to lead to scenes like this?
I wondered, What has gone amiss?
And could not answer; cannot sleep.
New nightmares clamber from the deep
While I am wide awake. I shiver.
My peace of mind seems gone forever.
And now my heart with horror thumps,
Trapped in this crazed new world of Trump’s!
RED MEAT
A man threw hunks
of bleeding red meat
to a howling mob.
Another questioned
him.
“This is supposed
to be a democracy.
Why don’t you use
reason to try to
educate them?”
The man turned
and stared at him for
a moment.
Then he turned
back to the mob and
shouted.
“I think we just
found us some more
meat!”
Moral: You can be
a majority of one if you
choose, but you might
end up being eaten alive.
Bruce Bennett would far rather write poems and fables about nature, human nature, love, death, and the mysteries of the Universe. Perhaps one day soon he will be able to return to doing that.
