Nobody for President

You’re a mean one, Mr. Gingrich.
You really are a heel.
You’re as cuddly as a nervous twitch,
And as charming as an eel,
Mr. Gingrich!

You’re a bad banana,
With a greasy black peel!
You’re a monster, Mr. Perry!
Your heart’s an empty hole.
Your brain is full of scary.
You’ve got garlic in your soul,
Mr. Perry!
I wouldn’t touch you
With a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!
You’re a vile one, Mr. Romney!
You have termites in your smile.
You’re a category five tsunami.
Or a seasick crocodile,
Mr. Romney!
You’re a foul one, Mr. Santorum!
You’re a nasty, wasty skunk!
Your heart is full of fake decorum.
Your soul is full of gunk,
Mr. Santorum!
The three words that best describe you
Are as follows, and I quote,
“Stink, stank, stunk!”
You’re a rotter, Mr. Obama!
You’re the king of sinful sots!
Your heart’s a dead tomato,
Splotched with moldy, purple spots,
Mr. Hope Not!
Your soul is an appalling dump-heap,
Overflowing with the most disgraceful
assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable,
Mangled-up in tangled-up knots!
You nauseate me, Michele Bachmann!
With a nauseous super naus!
You’re the misuse of woman,
And you ride a prideful hoss,
Mrs. Morally False!
Each of you is a three-decker sauerkraut
and arsenic sandwich,
Smothered in Wall St. sauce.
You’re a harmer, Dr. Paul.
Privatizing for itty bitty-ness’s sake!
You slink from healthcare for all,
And noise the nuptials of church and state!
And there’s this revolting fact:
You nay’d the James Zadroga 9/11
Health and Compensation Act,
Shrug Atlas, Dr. Ron John Galt Paul!

My apologies to the Grinch and, also, to Theodor Seuss Geisel.  But the campaign and election gyre is swirling its cyclical illusion of choice.

A few days ago, I slammed a sticker on the Lesbaru:  “NOBODY FOR PRESIDENT.”  My parents must be urn churning, their cremains tossing against the sides, top, and bottom of marble.  The right to vote. The rite of voting. I can hear their disapproval.

“If you could witness the tragedy of now, probably, you’d understand,” I sigh and speak to their memory in a room of my childhood on election night. So many election nights. “I wish you’d known. Did you know?” I whisper.  Adults, legitimizing the system, giving their bounty to its preservation.

The Iraq war has ended, we’re told.  The local newspaper provided an accurate number of troops killed, but who knows how many are changed forever, unrecognizable to loved ones?  And the Iraqi dead?  Most, according to the article, were killed by fellow Iraqis. What? Is this ex“honor”ation? No mention of our toxic gifts, weapons banned by international law.  No mention of a mercenary military, remaining, tossing against the sides, top, and bottom of Iraq in a strategic (?) role. No mention of continued drone warfare.  Or of the permanent tyranny timeshare—the Embolus—overlooking the Tigris.

Seasons Greetings to all. Don whatever festive apparel you can find and don’t take the last nine years or the next four billion (depleted uranium poison persistent to half-toxicity) personally.  Really, this was never about you.  And if anyone tells you there’s a crèche in the Green Zone, believe it.

Enter the chimneys of our discontent, Santa.  Wipe the smoke from your eyes. And ours.  Please don’t cry.  Your tears could be collected for later use in waterboarding when water is scarce.

Note to Santa: Leave no package unattended and if you see something, say something.

Missy Beattie lives in a “progressive” community among people with bumper stickers that say, “Obama 2012.”  Prints of twisted peace. Email MCB at missybeat@gmail.com

 

Missy Beattie has written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. She was an instructor of memoirs writing at Johns Hopkins’ Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in BaltimoreEmail: missybeat@gmail.com