The chief is stricken, O woe betide

The so disrupted realm

When afflictions thus descend

On the chieftan at the helm.

 

To think that virus should so precede

The vaccine on the ready;

Surely, some plot has been afoot,

Some vile Chinese perfidy.

 

And should the chief be quarantined,

Like some gilded parrot,

Pray, what fate may overtake

Amy Coney Barret?

 

And what of the campaign to terminate

The wicked opposition,

That poses as democrat

But is on disloyal mission?

 

How can the gods be witness to

His captain’s bad exit,

When the realm needs four more years

Of his incomparable wit?


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Badri Raina is a well-known commentator on politics, culture and society. His columns on the Znet have a global following. Raina taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is the author of the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. He has several collections of poems and translations. His writings have appeared in nearly all major English dailies and journals in India.

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