“The Sky is Falling” Reflections on Troubled Times and Political Poetry
It has been claimed that the United States is based on an idea, drawn from the Enlightenment, that a just state is one where the liberty of the community is in balance with the liberty of the individual. Little more than a decade after the Declaration of Independence, the mechanics of that just state were formalized with the adoption of our Constitution.
As with all human endeavors, it was not at its inception nor thereafter perfectly realized, but it has until recently been a work in progress, a source of inspiration and a focus for repeated striving.
Political poetry is often light verse that features a satiric view of the foibles of politicians and their policy boondoggles. It becomes more serious, a cry from the heart, with the realization that one is on the slippery slope to tyranny. Once the poet and others see that the great harm done by evil and ignorant men is not going to be punished or corrected, it is then that the tone shifts from “the emperor has no clothes’ to the panic of “the sky is falling.”
When an ignorant president repeatedly starts or threatens war, based on might and lies, when an unpopular president muses about cancelling the midterm elections, and demonstrates again his intent to meddle in them, that is where we are. As to why he is unpopular, I present my political poem.
Monster
-1-
Does constant screen presence hide a monster?
Does a nest-like hairdo, blank piggish eyes,
and bronze goo distract us from schemes to stir
up strife, all for a stew of greed and lies?
This short-fingered vulgarian uses
his fawning subordinates as little
more than dupes and toadies, and excuses
their unlawful acts with inane drivel.
What “Instrument of God” plays the puppet
for an arsonist, murderer, and war
criminal, while using lies and a threat
to disparage a hero? To ignore
his callous rejection of truth for lies,
and his pursuit of fraud and corrupt gains,
is playing his game. It so calcifies
the soul that little moral sense remains.
He sees a strong thumb on scales as his due
while due process for others seems a flaw.
To those bearing gifts, let fortune accrue,
while critics will find the dark side of “law.”
He fires workers for vengeance or a whim;
he threatens allies for no good reason.
No petty or mean act is beneath him.
He’s history’s bane, a man for no season.
Lawless, this would-be king just plies his con
and rents a gulag in El Salvador.
On proof of guilt, he’s a Mafia don
who sees Lady Justice as his kept whore.
-2-
A man of astounding ignorance he
considers himself brilliant and croaks out
“tariff” as if it were some magic key
but plays “chicken” when markets posit doubt.
This “stable genius” seeks a world order
to match the chaos in his fading brain.
Destruction takes but a dumb marauder,
selling out principles he can’t explain.
He attacks science, our strength and our light,
with conspiracies and gives convicts a pass.
He’s a narcissist with a dose of spite
and for all his heft, not one ounce of class.
He brought back measles and the grit of coal,
pushed back for decades our climate change plans.
Living and breathing will pay a large toll;
he’s a true curse to the health of all humans.
He calls out the Guard to walk city streets
but it’s just a show for red-hatted fools.
About gun pipelines, there’s nary a tweet
as children continue to die in schools.
He sees troopers as key to a police
state, one to hunt “the enemy within,”
that enemy defined by sheer caprice;
their only crime: getting under his skin.
Late night comics get to feel his disease:
a toxic ego to go with his scowl.
Free speech falls prey to a big money squeeze
as corporate types throw in the towel.
He has destroyed or removed all “guardrails”
and demolished the East Wing as if he
owned it. The dollar’s descent could prevail
as he pushes crypto and plays Ponzi.
A reverse Robin Hood, he takes from the poor
and gives to the very rich. His payoff
isn’t from fixing what others endure
but from pals who welcome his snout at the trough.
-3-
What “Instrument of God” views charity
with contempt and hunger as a tactic?
He’s a nightmare with no waking, and we
cringe as his orders verge on sadistic.
He has undermined all “rule-based order,”
ordering murder by our Navy’s fleet.
Every day it’s a novel danse macabre
by a “dancer” unfit to move his feet.
He drives out experts at each agency;
sets justice under siege at the DOJ;
sneers at virtue in foreign policy;
what will his criminal bent kill today?
His lust for land of our closest allies
included an initial threat of force.
He’s excused crimes, even murder, with lies
and never wheezes a hint of remorse.
Morals are buried in the ice and sleet
while he claims to hunt “the worst of the worst.”
The truth is found in spilt blood on the street
where his goons slaughter a poet and a nurse.
He wants ICE to be a true Gestapo
as lurid fantasies capture his brain.
At Davos, he lets world leadership go
by showing the world he’s old and insane.
He boasts “I run the nation and the world”
as our prized institutions bite the dust.
Our fate is tied to this liar and churl
who does what he wants and not what he must.
Peeved by his want of a Nobel Peace Prize,
(based on claims he’s “stopped wars”), he has instead
started several. It’s just a change of guise.
War crimes, not sugar plums, must dance in his head.
We mourn our long devotion to law’s rule,
a true source of US plenary might.
Now, misled by moods of this porny fool
it’s China’s day and our approaching night.
A plague of sabotage and sycophants,
with dread of reckless, dystopian din;
what Jefferson claimed was the fate of tyrants;
has it come to that…or if not now, when?
James Cronin
March 15, 2026
