by Peter Nohrnberg
Outraged and exhausted, we make our choice
guided by billions that masquerade as voice.
Like good consumers, we were well apprised;
knew the cost of eggs, if not of lies.
Fever dreams of unruly immigration
return to T---p the frayed reigns of the nation.
Sworn in under the Capitol’s Rotunda—
a cold snap turns DC to arctic tundra—
the colossus takes his oath on Lincoln’s Bible.
(Who but Abe or Jesus can claim libel?)
Fearing his dark promise of retribution
Silicon Valley makes a contribution.
Bureaucrats begin to take their leave
as Musk and DOGE descend like drones on Kyiv.
Among those given the algorithmic axe:
employees who fend off nuclear attacks.
Less government reform than “shock and awe,”
cutting of red tape, and rule of law.
T---p wields his blunt Sharpie like a machete,
shreds the Constitution to confetti.
Vital public info goes up in smoke,
sacrificed on the altar of “anti-woke.”
An able four-star general gets the sack,
replaced by one with three-stars who’s not black.
POTUS’s pen claims there’s but two genders;
and those born intersex? return to sender!
Like King David who forgave his half-brother,
Trump pardons both rioter and traitor.
The Senate coddles his menagerie of weasels
while unvaxed kids in Texas contract measles.
The keys to New York City pass to ICE
while Don Junior cavorts on Greenland’s ice.
Deported “illegals” are dealt a dismal fate:
and on the return flight? The brothers Tate.
Statecraft becomes T---p’s Art of the Self-Deal,
while folks in Gaza scavenge for a meal.
(One day they’ll all be served a ten-course feast
at the “Riviera of the Middle East”;
but first they must go on a long vacation
while Gaza undergoes renovation).
Back in the Oval Office on his knees
Zelenskyy begs, but stops at “pretty please”:
desperately in need of guns and tanks,
dressed down for not dressing up, not saying “thanks.”
Does the arc of history bend toward justice;
Or does history simply bend and break us?
Does democracy die in darkness, or blinding light?
How should we view this spectacle, our plight?
Will art and culture help us ride out the storm,
or did they bring about this new abnorm?
Did treating blue collar folks as ignore-ables
help gather MAGA’s “basket of deplorables”?
Or were their grievances, self-pity
what drove them to become so proudly sh---y?
Perhaps there’s something deep within us all
that answers to the con man’s siren call.
Devotion to another’s certainty
distracts us from the world’s contingency.
How easy to blame DEI, the border;
easier still to make disorder out of order.
When power controls the future and the past,
can even the written word persist, outlast?
Yet words, like insects tend to stick around;
gone for years, they emerge from underground:
can sting or float, be bee or butterfly,
little strong things to pinch an ugly lie.
guided by billions that masquerade as voice.
Like good consumers, we were well apprised;
knew the cost of eggs, if not of lies.
Fever dreams of unruly immigration
return to T---p the frayed reigns of the nation.
Sworn in under the Capitol’s Rotunda—
a cold snap turns DC to arctic tundra—
the colossus takes his oath on Lincoln’s Bible.
(Who but Abe or Jesus can claim libel?)
Fearing his dark promise of retribution
Silicon Valley makes a contribution.
Bureaucrats begin to take their leave
as Musk and DOGE descend like drones on Kyiv.
Among those given the algorithmic axe:
employees who fend off nuclear attacks.
Less government reform than “shock and awe,”
cutting of red tape, and rule of law.
T---p wields his blunt Sharpie like a machete,
shreds the Constitution to confetti.
Vital public info goes up in smoke,
sacrificed on the altar of “anti-woke.”
An able four-star general gets the sack,
replaced by one with three-stars who’s not black.
POTUS’s pen claims there’s but two genders;
and those born intersex? return to sender!
Like King David who forgave his half-brother,
Trump pardons both rioter and traitor.
The Senate coddles his menagerie of weasels
while unvaxed kids in Texas contract measles.
The keys to New York City pass to ICE
while Don Junior cavorts on Greenland’s ice.
Deported “illegals” are dealt a dismal fate:
and on the return flight? The brothers Tate.
Statecraft becomes T---p’s Art of the Self-Deal,
while folks in Gaza scavenge for a meal.
(One day they’ll all be served a ten-course feast
at the “Riviera of the Middle East”;
but first they must go on a long vacation
while Gaza undergoes renovation).
Back in the Oval Office on his knees
Zelenskyy begs, but stops at “pretty please”:
desperately in need of guns and tanks,
dressed down for not dressing up, not saying “thanks.”
Does the arc of history bend toward justice;
Or does history simply bend and break us?
Does democracy die in darkness, or blinding light?
How should we view this spectacle, our plight?
Will art and culture help us ride out the storm,
or did they bring about this new abnorm?
Did treating blue collar folks as ignore-ables
help gather MAGA’s “basket of deplorables”?
Or were their grievances, self-pity
what drove them to become so proudly sh---y?
Perhaps there’s something deep within us all
that answers to the con man’s siren call.
Devotion to another’s certainty
distracts us from the world’s contingency.
How easy to blame DEI, the border;
easier still to make disorder out of order.
When power controls the future and the past,
can even the written word persist, outlast?
Yet words, like insects tend to stick around;
gone for years, they emerge from underground:
can sting or float, be bee or butterfly,
little strong things to pinch an ugly lie.
A poet, cultural critic, and a scholar of literary modernism, Peter Nohrnberg has had his poetry published by Southwest Review, Notre Dame Review, The Wisconsin Review, and Oxford Poetry, among other journals. His poem “Pantoum After a School Shooting” was awarded second place in the 2020 Morton Marr Poetry Prize.
