Sojourns of the Trumpsmen. Canto Nine. Betsy DeVos

CANTO NINE.  BETSY DEVOS.

The West Coast of America is wild and woolly yet;

Full of enchiladas and the arrogant baguette.

When Betsy D came visiting, she didn’t plan to stay --

But here’s the tale of how she was marooned there one fine day.

Mighty Vulcan, neath the ground, was pounding on his forge,

Which caused the San Andreas Fault much landscape to disgorge.

In fact the whole West Coast slid off into the briny water,

Creating a new island that was buoyant as an otter.

DeVos refused to panic, with an Amway smile she led

The islanders to polling booths, new leaders to embed.

They called their atoll Neurocore, since Betsy greased the palms

Of ev’ry politician while she sang angelic psalms.

She became the Czar of Education in that land,

And brooked no intervention -- all complaints were strictly banned.

She printed vouchers by the ton; she painted schools bright red.

She fed the students caviar, with lots of cheap cornbread.

Back inside the Beltway, when they heard the funky news,

The trumpsmen didn’t do much except smile a bit and muse:

“The West Coast is so liberal that we are better off

Letting it just slide away into the ocean’s trough.”

But as DeVos grew stronger with her hold on scholarship

The islanders began resenting her patrician grip.

Like the nymph Kalypso she enchanted men and boys

To follow her instructions and stay with her as mere toys.

At last an insurrection of the common people led

To calls for Betsy’s resignation (and perhaps her head.)

By stealthy night she slipped away upon a modest yacht

To sail away from troubles like a modern Argonaut.

She landed on the shores of Arizona one dark night,

In Maricopa County -- and was locked up good and tight.

No boat people were wanted by the Arizona folk --

They towed her back to sea so she could try a cold backstroke

To some far distant country that would harbor her in peace.

And there she’s still a-floatin’ like a fancy spot of grease.

And mariners say in the fog, when peril looms before,

You can hear old Betsy shout: “Beware, beware, Al Gore!”


(to be continued)

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)