The Crusader's Head

DUBLIN — The head of a mummified Crusader, laid to rest in a Dublin church some 800 years ago, was stolen and a crypt vandalized, the police in Ireland discovered on Monday.
Ed O'Loughlin for the New York Times.

The head of a Crusader from eight hundred years ago

was recently dissevered with a single brutal blow.

Police have not discovered who the perpetrators are,

and label such misconduct both a puzzle and bizarre.

  What good is such an ancient head, beginning to decay?

Why go to all that trouble just to take it far away?

Because I am a poet, and have access to the Muse,

I humbly wish to offer up my cockamamie views:

I suspect that hoary head was taken from its crypt

and to the highest bidder will undoubtedly be shipped.

The purpose, I imagine, is the transplant of that skull

onto a Leader's body who's become a little dull.

I can think of dozens who could use a better noodle;

dictators and presidents who think just like a poodle.

With the antique wisdom of that head of a Crusader

a dullard now in office could become a new Darth Vader.

Yes, it is very sinister -- what that old head could do

upon the neck of someone bent on mischief or voodoo.

If Kim Jong-un obtains it and begins to use its brain

he will have our diplomats delivering chow mein.

Should Nicolas Maduro place it on his shoulders broad

he can get away with ten more years of blatant fraud.

And if Assad of Syria decides to take a chance

there is ev'ry hope that poison gas tech will advance.

Putin needs a new head -- no one doubts that in the least.

His current one is doughy and quite lacking in good yeast.

I wonder if the CIA that creaky head did steal?

Trump could use a new one as he tries to wheel and deal.

Perhaps I ought to see if I can buy it for myself

and become as famous as the Oracle of Delph.

I could write a Cookbook of Crusader Recipes --

or go in for some weight loss with Bubonic Plague disease.