[Newspoetry] REMEMBERING '96

[Donald L Emerick]

Honest-to-god Presidential Elections

Before we ask who might be President, good or bad,
we should first ask what a Presidency ought to be.

What's to be in an American Presidency?

No dictator wanna-be need apply for the job,
but they will, because they do wanna-be that:
power is like an aphrodesiac, addictive,
intoxicating, confusing and conflating --
the criminal mind is nothing by comparison
to the need-to-rule-over-and-out others mind.

Hyper-actives need not apply, but they do,
as they overwhelm any system, energetically,
intoxicated, again, by the glandy hormones
that feast upon self-adulatory stimuli.

Crooks and thieves, the greedy of wealth --
these too need not apply, but they always do,
because a center of power is a cash cow,
ready to be milked, a lamb for a slaughter.

The proud muscle-bound, chest-thumpers --
these weight-lifters, body-redux builders,
these too need not apply, but they always do,
because they love to parade, to strut on stage,
the pride of their useless but showy prowess.

The unscarred, unscared heroes of battles,
fought by other soldiers and sailors and flyers,
thousands of miles from such headline heroes,
who watch the war from tv, read of it in print --
none of these heroes need apply, but they do,
they always do take credit for their heroics,
when they have never faced any mortal danger.

The slow scholar, wise in his words of waiting,
limited in his views of what we truly must do,
the scholar who'd talk, not upset us by an act,
to teach others to act, in their own interests,
to preach, and not to do, just do nothing at all --
why, such a man will never be our president,
because he would never run, no, not at all.
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