Calvin Trillin Muses on a Lame Duck

Far-flung Correspondent Jerry sent a link to the following bit of poetry by Calvin Trillin in The Nation, with a note that "The last two lines should appear on a plaque in the Bush Presidential Library":

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Bush Labor Department Hurries to Change Toxic Substance Rules Before Obama Takes Office

Deadline Poet
By Calvin Trillin

This article appeared in the December 22, 2008 edition of The Nation.

December 2, 2008

For industry they're rushing through some rules
To ease restraints on using toxic goop
And dumping tops of mountains into streams.
In every hole, they seek a larger loop.

The ornithologists can tell us that
Such actions have a simple explanation:
A lame duck, though incapable of flight,
Is fully capable of defecation.

About Calvin Trillin
Calvin Trillin is The Nation's "deadline poet." He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963 and has written the syndicated weekly column "Uncivil Liberties" since 1986. He has authored many, many books, including Tepper's Not Going Out and Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist. more...