Attempt

We watch the news so casually, before our TV tray

While others scroll the headlines:  An attempt is underway.

And breathless, we interpret chaos, outside, looking in:

The Secret Service at a sprint, our leaders, rescuing.

What foul deeds a man can do, who’s barely started life,

Who storms the barricades alone, deterred not by a wife

Or any future expectations, dim, though they may be,

As he attempts to make his mark for all posterity.

How different from you! You foul machinery of state,

You stick a wrench in every gear, foment our basest hate,

You seek your adulation not at home, but center stage,

And leave your imprint on the world, besmirch it with your rage.

You storm the barricades of state, the boundaries, etched in vain,

Tear up the rules, prevaricate, proceed, through death and pain,

And think it feeds your glory, Manifesto ’25.

Your public is censorious.  Not one, you’ve not reviled.

And now you play the victim (which you do unceasingly)

And wonder, why we seem suspicious? Where’s our empathy?

Are you so bored of watching sheep upon your hill, alone,

That you created this display, to reunite your home?

Whose fault is it we shake our heads and weary, roll our eyes?

Four times?  Is this, too, Biden’s fault?  The Fourth Estate, in lines,

Has walked the carpet, red, and posed, like big celebrities.

The Glitterati of our Prose. The height of Vanity,

To rub bare shoulders, sequin-decked, with Great Prestige and Power,

To be their friends and drinking buddies, if but for an hour,

And in exchange, small price, they’ll listen to our president,

Allowing him to spew cruel words and stifle all dissent.

From this, we all were spared, for now.  A presser hurriedly

Was put together on home turf, to plead, remarkably,

That we must build a ballroom and a bunker, so secure,

That none can harm the president, that none can even lure

You out to public spaces, see the faces of your folk.

You’d rather we bring tribute on our knees as we approach.

This you attempt, an act, so reprehensible and vile,

That if this plot was real or not’s beside the point.  The style

Of monarchy.  Simplicity. Direction, all one way.

You’d like us in your power, bending to your whims, each day.

You’d like your name so sacrosanct, so much like God above,

Our taking it in vain would start the process of tough love,

With condemnation for your critics, all who disagree.

Domestic terrorists. Threats, to your golden sanctity,

Inviolate.  This you’d attempt, in full view of all men.

Now tell me, of the two of you, whom should we most condemn?

For a 2020 poem that combines well-wishing and scorn, on the occasion of a president falling ill from COVID, read Be Well. For my thoughts on previous assassination attempts, read the essay Once More in my book, Polemics, Political Poems & Prose.