Well, Lance, you know how it is in England. We find world events a bit parochial.

Lance, I don't do politics. Too depressing.

I don't think entries for this comp need by all that political. I can imagine a good entry might be a love poem by George W Bush, with all his customary mangling of language. Or how about some doggerel about the life of a hockey mom from Sarah Palin?

Adrian, those are words of wisdom. What about an Emily Dickinson by Angela Merkel?

Then in France, of course, there's Le Pen with his "National Front". The problem would be finding a suitable rhyme ...

Does anyone else here read The Nation? Calvin Trillin has been "Deadline Poet" there for years. He’s not exactly a poet, but he can be very funny about politicos. And his "verse" has been collected in several books. For inspiration one might read: "Obliviously On He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme." There are some samples on Amazon.

He's also written some ditties on Sarah Palin! (Wish I could.)

Charlotte

I think the real problem with this comp. is that the dullards we wish to lampoon are incapable of the neat phrases we'd love them to commit to their own disadvantage. Witness these two of mine....

BROAD THOUGHTS FROM AT HOME

I’d not much travelled, though I’d oft been told
Of many goodly states and kingdoms high;
Round western allies I was sent to fly
Which ‘aid’ in fealty to old NATO hold.
Oft of one wide expanse of liquid gold,
That ‘big-tached’ Saddam ruled as his own spread,
I’d heard - yet never did I hear it said
We’d rule it, till Perle spoke out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of stocks’ highs
When first an Enron climbs into his ken,
Or like Macarthur when, with power crazed eyes,
He ’cross the Yallu stared - and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise -
Yet knew their President was still sane - then.

(With apologies to John Keats)



‘FUTUROUS PROSPECTIVES’

When I have fears my rule may cease to be
Before my jumbled mouth has joined my brain,
Before stockpiles of arms and weaponry,
Reveal the scope of all I’d like to reign;
When I behold, upon Don Rumsfeld’s face
’Neath clouded brows, that hunted glance,
And think that we may not escape disgrace
For buying, with men’s blood, commercial chance;
And when I feel, Blair, ally of dark hours,
That I shall not have you to sucker more,
Nor have such smokescreen for our greedy powers
Of spectrum dominance; then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone and know
That power and guile, to judgement one day go.

(With apologies to John Keats)

Fun, I think,... but Dubya would never have penned them - not even after post-pretzel first aid.

Nigel

What can ail thee, Dubya, alone and palely loitering! Good shot, Nigel.

Not to detract form Nigel's Bush-whacker, but here's a note to John : Without my morning coffee I linked into Amazon to find and purchase the much lauded U]Girlie Gangs[/u] and nearly bought, in my semi-somnambulance, the following item:

Rational Root Canal Treatment in Practice by John M. Whitworth.

Caveat emptor!

Ah Lance, I've been wondering what to call my NEXT book.

Also... there's one's huge back-log of Blairiana - which I suppose wont count since he is now called to spend his time communing with all the other Gods of the Middle East! Still, I love the excuse to off-load some...

SHADOW MAN

I had a lot of MPs who went in and out with me,
And what could be the use of them was more than I could see.
I pretended to be like them in most every kind of way;
And they followed on behind me though I led them far astray.

The funniest thing about them is the way they liked to fight -
Not at all like proper people, which is always to the Right;
For they sometimes were so perverse and of States-side sense bereft,
That they sometimes read red speeches and then led off to the Left.

They hadn’t got a notion of how MPs ought to go,
And could only make a fool of me at every US show.
They learned, and stayed behind me, for they’re cowards you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to voters as those Members stuck to me!

One polling day, quite early, in the midst of my ‘nth’ war,
I'll rise and find the faithful pews less faithful than before;
For those nasty little voters, will leave them to their fates,
And no one's left behind me, neither MPs nor the States.

(With apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson)


... but the thing I most regret about that one is that the ruddy shadows remained shadows to the bitter end! And now... after Steve Bell has reduced Cameron to a condom, well - words do tend to fail one.

Nigel