Dubya Khan

(With Apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

In old Iraq did George and Dick
a great democracy decree,
where Tigris and Euphrates flow
through oilfields of proven reserve
down to the Persian Sea.

With presidential palaces there for play
for the pleasure of Saddam and Uday,
past muddy ground and ruin’d towns
past Badhdad to the sea.

Past torture chambers bright with light
and sleepless nights, perhaps a knife
and sensory deprivation, cold, and dark
and water-boarding for a lark.

With pyramids of naked men
Abu Ghraib is in the ken
of newsies 'round the world who see
futility and maybe more:

Democracy is the great cure,
said Dubya happily by the shore of
anyplace with oil galore
to power the humvee of legend’ry lore.

The war goes well, said Dick the demon lover
of this “crusade.”
Oh wait, that’s probably not the word
I want to use, but nothing Dick will say
Will fit the rhyme scheme anyway.

There was a General with a howitzer:
There is a way to make things right,
A surge will make them leave or fight,
A hundred thousand men will do
Don’t forget the women too.
We’ll kick some butt and after that
Tell the congress where it’s at,
We got it right this time for sure
Just keep the funding source secure!

“And all should cry, Beware! Beware!”
This war ain’t going anywhere
we’re winding down because because
we’re running out of troops to toss
into the maelstrom of Iraq
and getting ready for Iran.

© R. Scardino, 9/15/07