The Death Rattle of D. Jonald Trumprock
Or, The TS Eliot Parody That Got Rejected By McSweeney's (Twice)
The Death Rattle of D. Jonald Trumprock
Если бы я верил, что мой ответ был
Тому, кто так и не вернулся в мир,
Это пламя стояло без каких-либо более толчков.
Но поскольку никогда из этого фонда
Я не вернусь живым, я слышу правду,
боясь позора, я отвечу вам.
Let us go then, me and youse
Where the very fine people who love me hung a noose
For after they captured Pence, if they were able;
Let us go, to the certainly deserted Trump DC
The shuttered old retreat
Of Lindsey Graham in one-night cheap hotels
And the Trump Grill with the burnt food it sells:
Rooms that hollow like a tedious Jim Jordan rant
Of unread daily briefings
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “What Russian blackmail?”
Let us go and make our riot.
In the Press Room the fake news media come and go
Talking of Michaels Flynn and Pompeo.
For indeed, Manafort did time
I wonder, “Do I pardon?” and, “Do I pardon?”
Time to hold Merkel’s hand and descend the ramp
With the wet spot on the front of my pants still damp
(They will say: “My, how orange is his skin!”)
My shiny Brioni suit, my wrinkled shirt buttoned ‘neath my third chin
My necktie hanging low, a red arrow pointing to nothing within
(They will say: “But how did Stormy know it was in?”)
In the Press Room the fake news media come and go
Talking of Michaels Flynn and Pompeo.
Do I dare
Disrupt the election?
In a minute there is time
For me to make statements which in a minute I will reverse.
For I have lied to them all already, grifted them all:
Have golfed the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with stolen silver spoons;
I know the voices from Fox and OAN
Beneath Melania babbling from a farther room.
So how should I spin it?
Shall I say, I would have dated my daughter
And watched the smoke rising from the concealed weapons
Of lonely incels in body armor, breaking McCarthy’s windows?
I should have been a Coffee Boy
Shuffling across the floors of my dad’s office.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worthwhile,
After the porn stars and the bankruptcies and the attempted coup,
After the tax evasion, after taking the Fifth, after Gaetz and Greene whining on the House floor—
And this, the two dumbest large adult sons and more?—
It is impossible to tweet just what I mean!
But as if like magic, a Sharpie drew McConnell’s nerves in COVID patterns on an iPhone screen:
Would it have been worthwhile
If Barr, settling a MyPillow CEO or throwing off an investigation,
And turning toward CNN, should say,
“That is not it at all,
That is not what he meant, at all.”
No! I won’t eat Hamburger Hamlet, it’s just McD’s for me;
Am a hamberder slumlord, one that will do
Anything for Putin, start a war or two,
Advise the KGB; no doubt, an easy tool,
Fully compromised, glad to be of use,
Politics seditious and scandalous;
Full of gaslighting propaganda, base a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, completely ridiculous—
Always, at times, America’s Fool.
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall forever be Twitter-trolled.
Shall I comb over my hair in a beehive? Do I dare another security breach?
I shall wear giant ill-fitting trousers, and walk all over the Select Committee’s reach.
I have heard my accomplices testifying, each to each.
I do not think that they will subpoena me.
I have seen Don Lemon lying on the airwaves
And the MSNBC lineup will be blown back
When my voting base stages another attack
We have lingered in the chambers of the Senate
By Pelosi tearing up the State of the Union
Till Newmax voices wake us, and we sue.
Well done! The transition from benignly undecided to malevolent monster seems a bit of a stretch, but it works quite well.
This was a beautiful piece. The words flowed nicely. It is like reading a painting.