A Plain Spoken Pain
(From The Triumph of Strife: an homage to Dante Alighieri and Percy Shelley)

From off the ends of gerunds drop his “g”s
This talkin’ Texan messin’ with the tongue
Who drawls the down-home dialect with ease

Like Dorian Gray he stays absurdly young
While in a bunker attic plush and dim
A picture frame around a man is hung

Who bears the evil marks instead of him
In retribution for dividing kin
And countrymen for his agenda grim:

A simple plan to help the richest win.
“The others all must fail,” Attila said.
Once more he offers up his goofy grin

And garbled gulping gasps that can’t be read
By any but lost lemmings lamely led