Ken Waldman
Republican Leadership
It’s the hypocrisy and shamelessness
that astounds. How can so many rich men
(and women) incriminate themselves again
and again? With wealth, you’d think they’d practice
restraint, or would mix the deviousness
with subtle smarts. But abomination
after abomination. God, how can
they not see they can’t pass judgment unless
they themselves act with dignity? They’ll stand
in front of a camera, a straight face,
no irony, and claim the opposite
of what they’ve said or done. I don’t understand:
have they all gone to theater school and aced
the same class: Smug Assholes and Crazy Shit?
Ken Waldman is the author of Trump Sonnets: Volume 1 (The First 50 Days) (The Ridgeway Press, 2017), his seventh full-length book of poems. His poems have appeared in Arts & Letters, Beloit Poetry Journal, Massachusetts Review, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, and Massachusetts Review, among other journals, as well as in a number of anthologies. See kenwaldman.com for more.
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