smoking a Marlboro, musing,
more'n enough out there to kill ya,
I turn over clumped dead leaves,
damped by thick mist or fret, who knows,
but it's eerie,
eerie enough for that incongruity,
that stray thought of Saddam
after he was caught,
like some fierce killer dog beaten down,
head to the ground,
tired, finished, dirty, dishevelled,
and me, a twinge of something else
under the satisfaction because I'm human.
Alexander drunk and crown tarnished,
losing his grip, sword rusted to hell,
of Bucephalus fallen, and the dead
hounding his dreams. Did he not guess?
Napoleon imprisoned, not once but twice,
and those others, the rest of the pack
who followed cracked paths of power.
Gaddafi impaled, the bunker shot,
did they not know how it would end?
Her in the car wiping one salty tear,
confused, broken, betrayed,
for a decade of power, a decade of grief,
and me, a twinge of something else
under the satisfaction because I'm human.
Now Trump still sat in his tower
refusing the inevitable consequences
of flying too close, too high
on blonde obscene wings of wax.
He wasn't meant to do any of it,
interloper, uninformed, oafish,
kid on the hill, king of the castle.
How did he not work out he was played?
Cornered, suffocating, a bleeding wound
messing up their polished halls,
they are coming for him,
they always would at the appointed hour,
and me, I wait for that twinge of something else
under the satisfaction because I'm human.
Grounded down to ash, burned offering,
my forever and ever last cigarette hits the dew.
I think, maybe those other gamblers knew,
those shiny, tin god monsters knew,
and did it anyway.
Maybe Trump knew, and did it anyway.
Tonight, I won't be sad, even though I'm human.
