Some people desire to be
Presidents who set
Precedents
Who make their country greater,
Or who, more than likely,
Deeply desire
To make themselves great
Again,
Presuming they ever really were.
But, did it ever occur to such a mind,
That presidents, too, are in the same bind,
As every president, king or emperor
Before them?
Alexander, who?—
Ah, yes, the Great—
And for it wait, though
He could have slayed
One for saying it,
He no longer rots
Resting in his great pit.
Shit, how about Caesar—
Not the salad
But bronze Julius?
Dead.
Nero?—
Definitively died no hero.
Marie and Louis?—
C’est un obscur cloaque
Où leurs têtes sont enfouies.
George, Thomas, Teddy, or Abe?
Black hill granite busts
After which orange Julius lusts—
Yes their stone faces groan,
Eyes roll, and faces palmed—
Dead. Immovable.
But more corruptible;
Stoned—
Bad trips included—
History continually disputed.
Within legacy, what lies?
Regardless of that mixed bag,
Nobody should be surprised,
That a dead president’s legacy
Is filled with those who loved,
And, often more
By those who despised.
It’s designed,
Future presidents,
That whichever precedents
You end up setting…
It is the presidency
That will end up setting
You
In history’s bower
Of bludgeoned bones.
POET’S NOTE:
Part of the Truth, Applied collection.
© 2026 Tristan Robert Lange. All rights reserved.
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