WordPress is currently giving me a reminder each day of posts published on that date over the years. Because my month of versifying has always been November, some seasonal subjects recur, such as jacarandas, Sculpture by the Sea and the Melbourne Cup (but that one only once). No subject has been more insistent than US elections.
And I’ve done a US election verse this year. But first, here are my previous efforts:
4 November 2016, appended to a review of Overland Nº 224:
Verse 4: To Overland on Eight-eleven
Unhappy land that needs a hero.
Orban, Hitler, Donald Trump,
elected (unlike Stalin, Nero)
masters of the campaign stump
who feed on people’s desperation,
fan the myths of race and nation,
harness hate, despair and fear.
A heedless will for change is here.
We do need change. The seas are rising.
The profit motive hurts us all
and holds our governments in thrall.
I’m grateful for the organising,
analysing work you do.
It gives me hope we’ll make it through.
Nothing on the 2018 midterms. Then, 4 November 2020, written before the outcome of the vote was known:
Verse 4: Midnight Tuesday over there
(4 in the afternoon Wednesday here)
Two hundred million odd decisions.
Aggregate them, that's our fate:
a fresh start, maybe some solutions,
else the planet on a plate.
It's midnight last night where they're voting,
now all over bar much shouting,
counting, claim and counter claim
and – who knows – civil war's the game?
Here, next day, the sun is shining,
noisy miners bash the air
the magpies don't pretend to care,
and clouds are mostly silver lining.
'Six million Frenchmen can't be wrong' –
whoever said that is a nong.
6 November 2024, starting with a line from Montaigne:
Verse 4: We do not weigh the vices fairly
We do not weigh the vices fairly,
thumb the scales to suit our whim:
I exaggerate, quite rarely –
you tell fibs – but look at him!
His lies destroy the trust that binds us,
lead us where no truth can find us.
Crowds have wisdom, mobs can rule,
electorates can play the fool.
He's murderous and self-regarding,
incoherent, vile, inane.
He once could boast a showman's brain,
but principles are for discarding.
Lord of Misrule, theatre's Vice:
How could you choose him once, then twice?
So what now? Here goes, using rhyme words from its predecessors:
Verse 4: A turning point, perhaps
Unhappy land that needs a hero
badly so that, when his vice
and love of gold could rival Nero,
land just sighs and picks him twice.
But now a little light comes shining.
on that pool with ruptured lining.
Turns out that you just can't fool
all the people always – rule
to live by. But the rising
tide of reason won't lift all
the boats. The man's a thrall
to savage impulse. Organising
this defeat may be too late.
I tremble for the planet's fate.
