Poem to POTUS

O CAPTAIN! My Captain! Hear the sirens shrill buyer’s remorse;
The ship has floundered on the reef, our freedom surely lost;
Old glory sails among the gales, in strife and tempest tossed,

Its stars fall dim with tattered stripes, they cry in deluged tears,
What port is near, what bells to hear, the people all bewailing,
While follow eyes unsteady keel, the vessel grim and flailing:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of wine,
Where on the links my Captain bogies,
Leading from behind.

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the ensign bows--for you the bugle’s still;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths--for you the shores were crowding;
For you they voted, the Lemming mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear POTUS!
What is in your head;
A faux legacy and Faust like fame,
You’ve steered us to a dread.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
POTUS does not feel my pain, nor does the peoples’ will;
The ship is close to bottom, its voyage surely done;
From fearful trip, the vanquished ship, is full asunder torn;

Cry havoc, O shores, and warn O bells!
And we, with mournful flurry;
Haunt the deck in shadowed forms,
Mere mists of former glory.

The crews’ hearts faint in solemn woe,
Our anchorage, sure and droll;
Davey Jones has cursed our ship
For she lies on the nineteenth hole!;

Next to the S.S. Mulligan and the good ship Lollipop!

Prof. Michael F. Kenney