“The Leader Has My Full Support”

The Words of Doom

No party leader wants to hear
such words that ever bring great fear,
far worse than “guilty” in a court—
“the leader has my full support.”

No matter how the polls might fall
there’s always hope that, after all,
some issue might reverse the trend,
internal opposition end,
and popularity will soar
unto the heights they’d been before.
For Beasley, Latham, then for Rudd
the words, in turn, that froze their blood
and made their visages distort?
“the leader has my full support.”

Now Gillard daily reads the news
that, deep within the party, views
are these:  she’s past it, looking wan,
completely ruined, done-for, gone;
the party she “put on its tracks”
is ruined by a stupid tax.
So now she’s bunkered, feeling low,
reflecting things can hardly go
much worse than this, when comes a thought
of how her leader’s end was brought,
and how she’d guaranteed to all
she’d not effect her leader’s fall;
is Senator Arbib the sort
who’d scam behind her back? in short,
was he like her?  She hears, in dread,
the reportage of what he said;
her shoulders hunch, her eyes contort—
“the leader has my full support.”

Perhaps He Shouted, “Allah, Who’s in There?”

His Need Was Great*

The Yemeni arrested
and wrestled to the floor
had thought he had requested
an open toilet door:

“It was a simple error,
I thought I’d be too late,
I meant to cause no terror
by shouting ‘God is Great!’

“Though I teach mathematics
and am a clever swot,
the airline’s weird schematics
had baffled me a lot.

“Arthritic joints were swelling,
you must commiserate;
confusion set me yelling
so loudly, “God is great!’

“The pressure set me rushing
though I was told to sit;
now I’m the one who’s flushing—
I didn’t need to shit.

“Let all this be a lesson:
we should not be irate;
a man might need compassion
when shouting “God is great!’”

*  Daniel Bates, of The Daily Mail, reports, “The Yemeni man who was wrestled to the floor after pounding on the cockpit door of a plane approaching San Francisco may have mistaken it for the bathroom.  Rageit Almurisi cannot speak English very well and could have misunderstood the signs inside the jet, his cousin claimed.”  See also Jihad Watch.  Cross-posted at All Right, All Right.