Newspoem 4 July 2007

The President’s Colonoscopy

skidmarked white house a soggy diaper
surrounded by green lawn
moss around the urinal

before his colonoscopy
after subsisting for 24 hours
on clear liquids and laxatives
when he speaks he is still opaque
and full of
shit

he announces the vice will be president
to make it clear that
for that one hour
government will not cede to the American people

first the anesthetist reads to him from an atlas
until, five minutes later, he is unconscious
enter executive proctologist, hairless cephalopod
doctor cancer, skin split in ribbons
shakes spittle on the draperies
fumigates the bush for public lice
clamps his blueblood artery with a Texas leather moneyclip 
feeds a metal flashlight up his hole
and finds no brain strong enough to beat a heart
no sympathetic nervous system
concludes the patient remains alive through pure stubborn spite

the president is
a benign polyp on the
vice president’s rectum

parasite in the intestine of
the vulture who tears maggoty strands
from the rotting flank of democracy

donning the newspaper crown
the vice hammers his gavel, throws
open the vaults to the gentlemen
with the tiny foreheads
grunting ape cabinet fill their pockets with flecks of gold pried
from our toothaches, stream away like Titanic rats
while vice sneers epithets from a spiky metal box
his jittery tongue-twisty flibbertigibbet liebox flabbergasts
the educated through a smoked glass funhouse mirror

playing toy soldiers with frightened children
may they impeach the hell out of you, no child left behind