Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Eight. Steven Mnuchin.

CANTO EIGHT. STEVEN MNUCHIN.

Steve Mnuchin in his gilded palace of finance

Gnawed upon some crackers smeared with pungent liederkranz.

His duties as the trumpsman held responsible for cash

Were starting to taste bitter with the tang of dusty ash.

The rich were paying less and less, the poor were being dredged,

And brave Mnuchin didn’t know how money could be pledged.

In his savage anguish Steve Mnuchin sighed out loud:

“I wish that back in Hollywood I might soon be allowed!”

No sooner said than done, when Father Chronos heard his plea;

The god sent Steven reeling back to 1923 --

To Hollywood, the Golden Age of silent movie play,

Where custard pies and title cards were part of every day.

A limousine of verdant pink stopped next to him, and honked.

The door flung open and the banker inside then was plonked.

A man in black beret and with a monocle bade him find

A way for Theda Bara to make Rudolph lose his mind.

“You’re the big producer” said this Tinsel Town bootlick,

“So come up with some action and some sentimental schtick!”

Mnuchin grasped the problem right away -- the script was flat,

And needed some hysteria (with maybe molls and gat.)

“Have we got the funding to get Al Capone onboard?”

He asked his venal sidekick as the limo engine roared.

They got the mobster on a plane that very day so fleetly

That Capone did not have time to dump his prey concretely.

Mnuchin reveled in his time warp fantasy, until

Ben Turpin was assigned to him -- and then twas all uphill.

The actor with strabismus was a comic low and keen,

Who wanted nothing better than to be conked on the bean.

He shook hands with Mnuchin, then performed a one-oh-eight

that took Mnuchin with him so he cracked open his pate.

Before he could recover Turpin grabbed a custard pie

And at producer Steven he did let it wildly fly.

The goo upon his head began to dribble down his neck,

And Steven hollered right out loud to “Give that man a check!”  

“Then find me someone more refined to fill the comic role --

A Chaplin or a Keaton; anyone who’s not a troll!”

But all the comics he could find were still too crass and rude,

And so big Steve Mnuchin started thinking hard and shrewd.

Being a producer when the movies still were young

Was making him go crazy -- he would surely come unstrung!

And so Mnuchin called upon Dad Chronos one more time

To bring him to the present where the trumpsmen ruled sublime.

Back in his bright palace, Steve Mnuchin had this to say:

“Better all the clowns you know, than those of yesterday!”

(to be continued) 

Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Seven. John F. Kelly. (Loosely based on The Odyssey)

CANTO SEVEN.  JOHN F. KELLY.

Amongst the Argives serving Trump, John Kelly stands up soaring.

His press forums are run on time and rarely ever boring.

As Chief of Staff his long fixed stare strikes panic in reporters;

It makes them wish they had become instead godly colporteurs.

Upon the winedark carpeting in White House solitude

This warrior of days gone by will pace and sometimes brood:

To North Korea he must go to show the diplomats

That he can help in dialing down atomic thermostats.

Led by daemon, pride, or spite, John Kelly clears his desk,

And takes a supersonic jet to start his strange burlesque.

He lands in Pyongyang proper to a greeting cold and still;

Kim Jong-un, the dictator, has no use for goodwill.

In that land of starvelings poor John Kelly is remanded

To a dungeon cell, where he remains completely stranded.

He’s fed on rice and kimchi to break down his noble essence;

He knows that he is doomed, so he begins to fake senescence.

That wily soldier fools the docs and thus they let him go --

To wander round the countryside like some deranged dodo.

And all this time the White House staff gives Kelly ne’er a thought;

They think he must be sailing somewhere on a ritzy yacht.

Cunning Kelly scouts the lay of land like creeping ant,

Until he comes upon a secret military plant

Where atomic weapons are created, meant to quash

Occidental warmongers and all their silly bosh.

The moment of decision has arrived for Kelly, John.

Should he light the place up like the rosy morning dawn?

Or should he let the peacemakers continue their exertions,

With their tricky language and bumfuzzling assertions?

As he bows his head in pondered contemplation deep,

A rustic shepard comes along with herd of fleecy sheep.

He grins at Kelly openly and offers him some cheese,

Made from milk of ewes and meant to feed the great Chinese.

Breaking bread together, John F. Kelly realizes

That peace with all the world is surely one of the great prizes.

And so he thanks the shepherd with a nod and wink, then makes

His way back to the USA -- that land of beef and fakes.

(Don’t ask me how he does it -- this is not the time nor place

His woodcraft and his cunning to so fulsomely showcase.)

But as he tells the trumpsmen of his great adversity

They decide to lock him up and throw away the key.

Who needs a Chief of Staff that wanders all around the globe

Looking for the truth and willing hard to seek and probe?

Better that the media be fed on sleek fake news

So they’ll jump to conclusions like a bunch of kangaroos!

(to be continued) 

Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Six. Kirstjen Nielsen

CANTO SIX.  KIRSTJEN NIELSEN

Rising through the scandal waves, like Venus on her shell,

Kirstjen Nielsen came along, confusion to dispel.

Her long blonde hair did cover up a multitude of vice

(in others, since for her own self she seemed to be quite nice.)

Fatherland security is what she dotes upon;

Promoting it unceasingly with brain and active brawn.

At administration and enforcement she’s the tops;

As a solid trumpsman she has shown she’s got the chops.

Before a Senate hearing she has got to show her skill

In navigating swampland that surrounds the Capitol Hill.

In preparation thereof, some bold valkyries she called --

So she can leave those lawmakers upon the floor all sprawled.

But valkyries, when summoned, are not very meek and mild;

They rather like to give their host a ride that’s pretty wild!

So Kirstjen found herself astride a steed, then gave a holler,

As the whole dang bunch of them went up into Valhaller.

The valkyries took Kirstjen straight into the feasting hall,

Where warriors were guzzling and spoiling for a brawl.

The red-eyed master of the revels bade her sit at ease

While he belched a cloud of mead and scratched his pesky fleas.

“So you’re the one to massacre the foes who dare invade

Your fatherland!” he roared, as sharpened daggers he displayed.  

“Don’t let ‘em think that hygge keeps you gentle as a maid --

But strike their worthless heads off to display on your stockade!”

He offered her a cup of mead -- she downed it in one gulp,

Which then in turn went right to work and turned her brain to pulp.

Flaming with a Viking rage, good Kirstjen took a sword

And started ventilating those around the groaning board.

Zip! There went a thighbone gone. Zap! There goes a nose.

Mighty Kirstjen made mincemeat of heads and arms and toes.

The massacre left ev’ryone with wounds that ever bleed --

Then Kirstjen tossed her head in pride and had another mead . . .

When she awoke upon her bedroom floor she realized

She had had a vision that had left her canonized.

Her calling and election sure, a warlord Queen was she.

She’d spit the foes of Uncle Sam upon a sharpened tree!

She’s going into battle with the Senate pretty soon.

She’s gonna turn some heads and make so many of them swoon.

Can she be trusted to protect our sacred polity --

Or will she want to give each citizen the third degree?

(to be continued)

Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Five. Rex Tillerson.

CANTO FIVE.  REX TILLERSON.

The rosy sun peeked o’er the tops of monument and dome

Until it reached the window panes of Tillerson’s fine home.

Rex Tillerson, in study lined with books and charts diverse,

Was pondering origins of the complex universe.

No moron he, with brains as big as watermelon fruit;

Rex Tillerson did calculus -- and also played the flute.

He deigned to oversee the State Department just for kicks,

And dreamed he could discover the headwaters of the Styx.

Like any self-respecting sage, he longed to poke and prod

Into the cosmos constantly (and maybe play at God.)

In his garage he tinkered with a large and sturdy kite,

With which he thought he could achieve intergalactic flight.

Powered by a Democrat who ran inside a wheel,

The kite was ready to be launched with scientific zeal.

And thus assured, Rex Tillerson, that mighty man of brains,

Mounted to the cockpit to pull levers and grab reins.

Faster than a supersonic jet he sped away

Right past clouds to play at tag with satellites all day.

Landing on the Moon, he found it dusty and inactive.

The fact that Bernie Sanders wasn’t there made it attractive.

Impatient to discover all the mysteries of space,

Rex Tillerson continued at an arbitrary pace.

On Mars he found canals and polar ice and gun control;

Anyone who shot one off was put on hard parole.

Past the gaseous giants he fled into the abyss --

And found that all dark matter was milk chocolate made by Swiss.

Bouncing off a black hole he caromed into a star

Where the Little Prince sang in a bleak karaoke bar.

Tillerson then twittered to his boss that he had found

That the Big Bang Theory was disproven and unsound.

All matter was created not by blast but by design,

And with the Golden Rule his chief had better soon align.

Back on Earth the Chief received this tweet with unbelief.

He told the press that Tillerson’s appointment had been brief.

Now he was ambassador to all of outer space

(after which all record of him vanished without trace.)

They named a comet after him, a constellation too --

But where he really went not anybody really knew.

Among the constellations there is plenty of hearsay

That as an immigrant he cannot cross the Milky Way.  

(to be continued)  

Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Four. Scott Pruitt.

CANTO FOUR. SCOTT PRUITT.

From the land of Ponca, where Tornado Alley thrives,

Came a Great White Lawyer, with the dust of cattle drives.

Scott Pruitt was a trumpsman who believed in smoke and mirrors.

He thought that global warming was just pandering to fears.

He loved the smell of sulfur and he treated fossil fuels

As tenderly and eagerly as if they were rare jewels.

He cherished ev’ry lump of coal that Santa brought his way;

To him they were a badge of honor with a sweet cachet.

The fiery indignation of tree huggers left him cold.

He had no heart for anything but methane and black gold.

He loved a roaring furnace full of clinkers and hot coke,

With ashen clouds spread round about, making people choke.

He did not go unnoticed by the fiends down in the pit;

They liked his motivation and they thought it very fit

To grant him a vacation in their flaming regions low --

Where soot and sparks and charcoal fumes eternally do blow.

And so it came to pass that one fine day while Pruitt planned

To have most of the EPA rules permanently banned,

An imp came through the floor to grab his ankles for a trip

Down into the murky bowels of earth at quite a clip.

Pluto greeted him with pleasure in his kingdom hot,

And bade him to relax, then peeled for him a tart kumquat.

“I find it rather warm down here” said Pruitt with a grunt.

“I hope that you are not averse to having a cold front.”

Pluto roared with laughter; twas a jest indeed, he thought.

But Pruitt found the atmosphere was getting rather hot.

When he pled to be released back to the upper world,

To feel the zephyrs cooling and smell flower scents unfurled --

Pluto roared again, but not with pleasure -- only pique

That Pruitt from his close embrace would think to slyly sneak.

“By all the tar and asphalt in my kingdom” he replied,

“You’ll park your carcass here with me and long time will abide!”

Meanwhile back upon the earth, the clerks of Pruitt fell

To telling his appointments that old Scott had gone to hell.

When all the other trumpsmen heard about his dire plight,

They shrugged in full indiff’rence and then hoped he’d be alright.

For though a trumpsman beats his breast and claims a noble heart,

He rarely thinks of others outside of a neat pie chart.

Thus Pruitt found himself upon extended leave down under,

Sweating midst the greasy gloom of Pennzoil’s future plunder.  

(to be continued)