Skip to main content

21ST-CENTURY POETRY Trump Has Covid

and I do not celebrate. Melania has Covid
and I do not celebrate. Covid is a fiend, a brute –
a devastator of too many homes, a ruiner of health,
relationships, families. Of businesses, of lives.
I wish it gone, I wish healing to the whole world.
He will recover, I think – like many he will have
the very best care that money can buy, he will not
be poor, unattended, untreated, destitute, alone.

He will recover and his children and his grandchildren
will rejoice. I would spare anyone such dreadful grief.
He will recover and face (I hope) the end of this office,
face the truth of his time as President, bear witness
to his own political end – this is the only death
I wish would come for him. If we wish someone dead,
then who are we, ourselves?
Love is the answer, love is the only thing I keep
in my head when I chew upon this news. I wish him
the discovery of it for everyone, I wish him awake
with new eyes, a new heart, a new respect for Black Lives
Matter, a cleansing of his own polluted soul.

And then I sit and think,
if he is voted out, if people turnout to stop
this man, this white supremacy supporting, tax dodging
woman-hating, groping, sexist (I won’t say pig,
as they are more intelligent that this), dangerous,
right-wing, climate denying, environmental disastering,
racial hatred instigating bully of a man,
well. THEN I will celebrate,
have the biggest ding-dong knees-up you ever saw
and think, think about how ‘politicians’ like this really can
come crumbling down, can lose their hold like useless,
loaded, rigged-up, dodgy, mould infested walls.

I’ll start to hope for over here –
that liars CAN fall, that cheating fraudsters will fail,
that cruel hypocrites will stumble at the block,
that malicious squanderers can be stopped,
that greedy, bumbling, phoney smear-campaigning evil-doing beasts
might grow humble again, that pocket-lining mock-buffoons
can learn kindness, can make us all a destiny of fairness,
that all these mistakes could be turned beneath a brand-new page,
that they can be tumbled from power just the same.

JANE BURN
 
Jane Burn lives in the North-east of England.21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email [email protected]

OWNED BY OUR READERS

We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society.

 

 

Become a supporter

Fighting fund

You've Raised:£ 13,288
We need:£ 4,712
3 Days remaining
Donate today