I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A QANON CONSPIRACY

by Ellen Hawley McWhirter

I am the very model of a QAnon conspiracy

Born and bred to foster fear and rampant insecurity

And through the years, you must admit

I’ve gotten rather good at it:

I am the very model of a QAnon conspiracy.

 

I weaponize the people who feel left behind, and I compel 

their loud attacks on science and on medicine and truth itself.

The stranger that my theories get,

The more that they are shared and spread

‘cause QAnon conspiracies, like COVID, are quite hard to quell.

 

The Democrats are stealing children underneath your very nose

Selling them and eating them and hardly anybody knows.

You must refuse to vaccinate;

Just drink some bleach and you’ll be great,

And watch out for the Deep dark State our hero Trump tried to expose

The national election it was stolen, it was clearly fraud:

Put Democrats and disagreers all before a firing squad!

The Bible and the Constitution

Call for bloody resolution

Get your guns and bombs, and know that Jesus surely would applaud.

 

The wearing of a mask is an affront to true civility

The bearing of a weapon anywhere is basic liberty

Mass shootings are a lie perverse,

And climate change is even worse

You must defend these truths with Christian hatred and hostility.

 

The only threat that worries me is thinking that is critical,

That shows my puppeteering, and is clear and analytical,

Exposes my hypocrisy,

and questions what’s in it for me,

and highlights common ground across our differences political.

 

Now if you think I’m bragging, it’s just not that hard to play this game

When people are unhappy and are seeking someone else to blame

A rumor and some blatant lies,            

And 1-2-3 you’re polarized,

And Jewish lasers shot from space fan all the sparks right into flame.

 

I am the very model of a QAnon conspiracy

Fed by anger, ignorance, and hunger for identity

I’m anti-logic, anti-truth,

I’m anti-them and all for you:

I am the very model of a QAnon conspiracy.

Ellen Hawley McWhirter is a professor of counseling psychology and writes poetry to preserve her sanity.

JOHN F. KELLY, A MODERN FOUR-STAR GENERAL

by  Orel Protopopescu

   With Apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan

He is the very model of a modern four-star general,
thinks politicians should shut up or change the laws, ephemeral.
He’s sure the border’s leaking drugs that make us all delirious,
suggested splitting moms from kids might show them that he’s serious.

We’d “never leave the house” he said, if we all knew what threatened us,
and that’s why we need manly ex-Marines who take command and cuss.
But cussing out your predecessor doesn’t suit this paragon,
so Scaramucci’s days were numbered soon as “f-ing P.” was gone.

Some think that Kelly will control the president and moderate
a tendency to shoot himself that raised the shades of Watergate.
But will he dare confront his boss or click his heels to Yes, sir?  
When POTUS waved a sword, John muttered, “Use that on the press, sir.”

In short, commanding criminals, maniacally inimical,
he is the very model of a modern four-star general.

                                                                   

Orel Protopopescu won the Oberon poetry prize in 2010 and a commendation in the Second Light Live Competition, 2016.  Thelonious Mouse, her fourth picture book, was awarded a Crystal Kite, 2012, from SCBWI, and she’s written other prize-winning books for young people. Her poetry has appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Oberon, Poetry Bay, Light, Lighten Up Online, TheNewVerse.News, Socialism and Democracy and other reviews, anthologies, and in her chapbook, What Remains (2011, Finishing Line Press). She teaches at the Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington Station, NY.