The doorbell rang, I jumped to see <br />there stood three men in suits, <br />and bulges (were they meant for me?) <br />plus black and shiny boots. <br />'The President has sent us, Sir', <br />the bigger bloke had said, <br />'First Lady likes to smile and purr <br />when poetry is read, <br />demands that on her special day <br />you be there with your stuff, <br />there will be food and drink and pay, <br />I tell you off the cuff. <br />The President requests you write <br />some poems about war <br />and how his overwhelming might <br />goes out to foreign shore. <br />And kills the rotten terrorists <br />the enemy of man, <br />and then compiles a lengthy list <br />of others, in Iran. <br />He'd like to hear that he is chief <br />the one who throws the switch, <br />so, be creative, never brief <br />with your poetic Kitsch.' <br /> <br />I saw the bulges and the boots <br />but had to stand my ground, <br />I told the men in Brooklyn suits <br />that I was honour-bound <br />to my own soul and no one else <br />and I would thus decline. <br /> <br />Next day my body, full of shells <br />swam in the river Rhine.<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-visit-2/
