The Worst and the Dullest
(From The Triumph of Strife: an homage to Dante Alighieri and Percy Shelley)

The languid, lazy, leisure loafers laugh
No hint of urgency disturbs their rest
“Inconsequential Fool” their epitaph

Who took no notice of the viper’s nest
That they at first created, then ignored
The Worst and Dullest; Brightest and the Best

More worried, they, about whose ox is gored
Than those who daily die due to their crimes
They care about the king for whom they whored

More than the victims of these horrid times
Expending atmospheres of wasted breath
Our leaders add more heat to torrid climes

While in Iraq an Omar shibboleth
For some now daily means their life or death

A daffy, dreamlike, diffidence decrees
That those who draw a blood bath from afar
Retain their hothouse orchid warmth degrees

These bureaucrats who lower down the bar
With signing statements signaling their sloth
For only more corruption will they spar

Too many crooks, of course, can spoil the broth
His faithless execution of the laws
Reveals a varmint vandal Visigoth

Obsessed with nothing more than flaunting flaws
Conspicuously wasteful for effect
The branch on which his country sits he saws

Inflated with disdain for intellect
He bows to ignorance to pay respect