This race might be one that’s best tackled unshackled—
Unchain me, you losers, and let me fly free!
I think I might surge without Ryan—I’m tryin’;
The best course of action is “Let Me Be Me!”
We don’t need to mention how racist my base is,
Or how xenophobic I am on the stump
It’s anti-establishment voting I’m noting
And no one can play the outsider like Trump!
Politicos came to my wedding, indebting
These Beltway Insiders to see things my way!
I do love to talk, but it’s funny that money
Speaks louder and stronger, so that’s why I pay!
Political types can’t be trusted—they’re busted—
They thrive on donations to force them to care.
The issues that billionaires care for? They’re there for!
But me? They’re my issues! I’m already there!
They constantly claim they’ll take axes to taxes
But donors convince them to “leave us alone!”
My plan has the billionaires thriving, conniving
To cut you so deeply it hurts to the bone.
While most politicians try smiling, beguiling,
I’m earning your trust with my permanent frown:
Our nation would love to outlive me, but give me
Your votes, and I promise, I’ll burn it all down.
Sorry, I had some time to think while giving exams.
I have a riff stuck in my head that’s something about “the answer for ‘political correctness’ isn’t incorrectness.”
Beauty.
Cuttlefish
Did you ever explain Sepielle?
It’s a facinating rhythm.
I chose “Sepielle” as a nod to A) Sepia, the cuttlefish genus, and B) various highly structured verse forms like villanelles, paradelles, terzanelles, and the like. So, it’s a highly structured (especially the internal end-rhymes on the odd-numbered lines) verse written by a cuttlefish.
If I knew who the poetry-writing authorities were, I’d submit it as an official verse form, so that schoolchildren across the globe would be forced to study them.
These internal rhymes–I saw some– are awesome
Its rhythms the Cuttlefish brilliantly scores.
His poetical specialty Sepielle is. I’m jealous–
With wit, words and wisdom his oeuvre never bores.
Awesome as usual! I fully endorse having this taught in schools, but I have a slight problem with the definition:
“So, it’s a highly structured (especially the internal end-rhymes on the odd-numbered lines) verse written by a cuttlefish.”
Happily unaware that this was a requirement, I wrote a few anyway, such as this, on the same theme:
A salesman of skill will inspire desire
and strengthen their customers’ hope, fear and need.
The populist likewise aspires, yet slyer,
and adds xenophobia, victimhood, greed.
They’ll say, while conducting The Choir of Ire
(the “poor huddled masses who yearn to be freed”):
“Our nation is headed from fryer to fire –
unless you, My People, put me in the lead”!
But seriously, who wants to hire a liar
who proudly boasts “us versus them” as a creed?
From wolves dressed in lambswool attire, what buyer
would purchase this snake oil and swallow the screed?
Are they unaware, I inquire, what prior
employment of othering led to, indeed?
I can’t say for sure they conspire to tire;
in my case, however, they really succeed!