From that infamous 2021 tape recording, reported today on CNN
Secret.
This is secret information.
Look,
Look at this,
This was done by the military
And given to me.
Well,
With Milley –
uh,
Let me see that,
I’ll show you an example.
He said that I wanted to attack Iran.
Isn’t that amazing?
I have a big pile of papers,
This thing just came up.
Look.
This was him,
They presented me this –
This is off the record,
But –
They presented me this.
This was him.
This was the Defense Department
And him.
We looked at some.
This was him.
This wasn’t done by me,
This was him.
All sorts of stuff –
Pages long,
Look.
Wait a minute,
Let’s see here.
I just found,
Isn’t that amazing?
This totally wins my case, you know.
Except it is like,
Highly confidential.
Secret.
This is secret information.
Look,
Look at this.
As president,
I could have declassified,
But now I can’t
It’s very clever. But I have never actually personally attended a live poetry reading. I’m not sure what’s done. I kind of picture snapping fingers in the background. Maybe a bouzouki player. What would be most appropriate for Trump?
I always imagine these as the lyrics to a Broadway Musical about DJT produced 50 years from now. This song comes at the end, during his tragic, delusional, spiraling downfall. (“This was him… this was him…”)
(There was a pretty good COVID poem in the first thread that would make a good comic-relief song in Act I.)
I’ve wanted to do another one of these for some time now, but you have to use Trump’s spontaneously spoken words. That’s the only form that lends itself to that repetitious “stream of consciousness” blank verse style. Scripted statements, third party statements, or anything written - even Trump’s own tweets – don’t have that quality.
When he was in office I could easily find transcripts of his speeches online. But since then I could only find news stories that quoted a sentence or two here or there. To get enough trump speech material for a “poem” I’d have o transcribe it from a YouTube recording myself. And I’m not about to do that.
Yeah, but I can understand that having to listen to Trump’s words, over and over and over, in Trump’s own voice, could be detrimental to one’s overall well-being…
Reminds me of the deranged last words of Dutch Schultz.
“A boy has never wept…nor dashed a thousand kim.
You can play jacks, and girls do that with a soft ball and do tricks with it.
Oh, Oh, dog Biscuit, and when he is happy he doesn’t get snappy.”
Although I prefer the MAD Magazine version where instead he was pining for the enemas his severe German governess had administered during his formative years, crippling him sexually for life:
Regarding musical accompaniment, I believe in a minimalist approach to this sort of thing. Most of it should be recited in total silence in keeping with the pure beauty of the verse, accompanied only by three solitary notes on a balalaika on every mention of the word “secret”, and the crash of a massive oriental chau gong following each exclamation of “this was him!”.
IMO it has one fatal flaw as a likeness. The mouth is closed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the real thing with his mouth closed. Made it kinda hard to recognize who it represents. I only got it from the context of the thread.
You’re right. Furthermore, the person depicted in the statue looks serene and almost intelligent, making it hard to recognize the intended subject. I have modified it to be more recognizable:
