More parapolitical poetry

Yesterday, I quoted a snatch of Peter Dale Scott's "Balld of Drugs and 9/11." A reader named bboldt2 responded with an offering of his own, a riff on Shelley. I like it so much I feel obligated to publish it here:

Ozymandias’ Foot
With apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelly

Here lies a trunkess
Near legless foot
Cold as stone in the Iraqi sand.

I think of its owner.
I see him
Carefully tending it
Pruning the nails
Scrubbing between the toes in the shower
Generously powdering it and its twin
Before dressing to meet the day
Remembering how he stubbed its big toe one joyous wedding night.

This foot was loved as was its owner.
Now useless as an old tire
It lies
Embarrassed and naked in the raging street
Until the battle ceases.
Perhaps in a day or two
It and its dog-chewed, remnant Tibia
Bare as a shattered exclamation point
Will be lovingly returned
To the house where it once stood.

Traveler, contemplate all that remains of this once proud man.
Look upon what a miraculous machine was suddenly undone.
Wonder on the sad truth that we are all just
Such a one as this
Left hanging by a tread to be cut so sharply
So casually
So meaninglessly
By bomb and missile
Grenade and shell
Discarded, boundless and bare
Trash in the Iraqi sand.

How can we be so violently defooted
So senselessly disassembled?

I would like to have this foot for my very own.
I would place it
In all its glorious, ruinous, decomposing splendor
In a monstrance lined with satin
Red as the blood that deserted its veins.
My own two feet would gladly do the service of bearing
This holy relic
Up the steps of the Capitol in Washington.
Reverently removing the covering of this unique trophy
I would loudly proclaim to the assembled joint session:
“This is the foot of Qzymandias.
Gaze upon your work and despair.”

Nice.

Alas, my own muse operates on a much less rarified level:

A Diebold electronic trick
Beset us with Bush and a Dick
Removing the creep
Will raise up the veep.
Should we trade a putz for a prick?