Poem For The White House Correspondents Dinner

 the nerd prom apparently isn’t smart enough

 to install new air filters to purge aerosols

 and it chose not to use ultraviolet Covid killing light

 maybe the organizers didn’t want people 

 to have a chance at better mass gathering health

 as they laugh at Trevor Noah’s safe jokes

 before he ascends to James Corden’s throne

VANITY FAIR ‘s Bess Levin on Donald Trump’s Show-of-Force 4th of July.

Excerpted from Bess Levin’s VANITY FAIR newsletter:

As you’ve probably heard by now, Donald Trump is forcing the military to throw him a giant parade on Thursday under the guise of celebrating the Fourth of July, because he witnessed France’s Bastille Day festivities in 2017 and demanded the same thing for himself, just bigger. There are a number of issues surrounding the event, including the millions it will cost, the fact that lots of troops are at home for the holiday and will have to return to D.C. to move and guard tanks, and the desire probably felt by many Americans to not have one of their favorite holidays tainted by association with Trump. Also: the fact that the aggro displaydemanded by the president may damage one of the most beloved monuments in Washington and cause a bridge to collapse, because the laws of physics are apparently trying to send a message about the dangers of having a narcissistic man-child in the White House.

According to the Washington Post, engineers have been examining the Lincoln Memorial—where Veruca Salt wants to give a speech flanked by military tanks—to “determine if the weight of stationing armored vehicles there would affect the Lincoln Memorial’s underground rooms,” after National Park Service officials warned that such a deployment could damage the site. While the symbolism of the Lincoln Memorial literally collapsing under the weight of Trump’s asinine display would be poetic, we can probably all agree that it would be better if the monument remained intact. Similarly, it would nice if the event didn’t cause a bridge to collapse, which it could!

Revised Poem: THE COVINGTON BOY AND HIS AFTERMATH

supposed good boy

from good family

visiting nation's capital

wears his big red

I'm-with-stupid-leader cap

stands toe to toe

with man of different race/religion

boy's face wears superiority smirk

as his stature rapidly shrinks

while the man staying true

to his spirituality

is the real Great American

>

but the story does not end there

zealous conservative adults use bad boy

as symbolic nuclear weapon

aimed at The Washington Post and CNN

to cease those discouraging facts about

the leader who shouldn't be leading

and who, in a more courageous world,

ought to be playing golf for years

in a country-club prison

far from non-security cameras

restrained from orchestrating perpetual hate

in generations old and young