April 11 NaPoMo 2021

[CRNDLSM]

Rules: Write a poem for national poetry month on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a separate reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month have written 30 poems for National Poetry Month.

NaPM April 11, 2021

Topic: write a poem about a leading political figure, past or present.

Form: any

Line Requirement: any

[Keith]

USA USA USA

President Cooper was elected in 1973
at the young age of just eighteen.
His campaign manager was a monkey
who wore roller-skates and smoked
like a chimpanzee, handing out cash
from a white wheelbarrow.

The vote was a generation landslide,
mainly due to his policy on academic abolition.
His slogan “ Hello Hooray” quickly turned
sour when he was accused of selling
billion dollar babies on the open market.

This, would be Mr. Nice Guy, quickly fell from grace
and his decline was compounded when he told
a mother of four from Detroit to go to hell
after that everything he said
was considered poison by the press.

He captured his brief tenure in the Whitehouse
in his autobiography, titled ”Welcome to my Nightmare”
which reached number 19 in the best sellers list in 1975.

[CRNDLSM]

What do you do when Lincoln,
President of the US,
Is carried into your house,
After being shot across
The street at the theater,
Soldiers and political
Figures in and out all night?
You, your family, and all the other boarders of the house, will obviously sleep in the basement.

[TranquillityBase]

The Death of Pancho Villa: A Parable


Francisco “Pancho” Villa was the son of a peon
his father dead when he was twelve
at seventeen he saw his sister raped by un hacendado
and shot him.  He took up the gun, for 13 years
he lived as a bandit in Durango, then Chihuahua,
desert and mountains were his refuge from the federales.

Came little Madero to father a revolution, 
to overthrow rotten Porfirio Diaz, who’d drained
the peasants of all but their next few meals.
Villa joined up, and soon led an army, and earned
betrayal after betrayal, first Huerta then Wilson,
then all the others:  Orozco, Carranza, Obregon, 
warlords first then wannabe Presidentes.

Villa finally surrendered, after American searchlights
helped his enemies in a night battle,
after his Dorados were slaughtered
by American machine guns.  He retired to Durango,  
to be un hacendado,  but he’d made too many enemies 
to be spared one last magnificent betrayal:  
seven assassins, nine dum-dum bullets just for Pancho
and the absurd signal for his execution: 
a pumpkin-seed seller shouting “Viva Villa!” 
at the approach of his Dodge touring car.

He was my father’s hero, and he’s a hero we could share.
His reputation is not so good, now that legends
must die: rapist?  Probably if not literally.  Murderer?
Most certainly, just not filmed.  A peasant with a gun
who never understood how to kill without one.

[Leaf]

The Tories often give me cause to rant,
yet here is Rishi Sunak with my grant;
not sure if he's a leading political figure,
but thanks to him my bank balance is bigger.

[Mark A Becker]

TRUMP TURF!

My neighbor was a big supporter
of the former president and she was thrilled
to be the first customer to sign on
to have her lawn re-sodded
with the exciting NEW, BEST thing
in lawn care: TRUMP TURF!

Her jaw dropped when TRUMP himself
came to supervise the job.
Before even starting, TRUMP instructed the crew
to erect a ten foot American flag
in her front yard, with TRUMP TURF!
in gold letters across it.

My neighbor was aghast, but TRUMP
pointed out that she must have missed
the fine print stipulating that it was part
of the contract.  After she complained
to the crew, TRUMP immediately
fired all of them, and left (flag intact).

Then she received a certified letter
from TRUMP’s attorneys claiming
that she had defaulted on the contract
and owed TRUMP TURF! the sum of
$40,000.  After she got angry, she took
down the flag, and promptly received

an invoice for another $10,000, and a visit
from the local police for destruction
of property.  She realized the situation
was hopeless, and forked over the $50,000.
She told me she considered it a donation
to a possible TRUMP 2024 campaign.

[dukealien]

Give Thanks


Give thanks, give thanks O world, for Josef Vis-
sarionovich, who, better known by his
metallic party name of ‘Stalin’ taught
the joys of living as free humans ought
by grand counterexample.  Who, beyond,
confirmed a still-surviving loyal bond
between gross thugs and over-smart elites
which lived in freedom but worked for defeats
of their own nations’ liberties, so hid
and lied, elided, did as they were bid
by Stalin to advance his tyrant plots.
Remember, world, how over-smartness rots--
lest Joe return.