Strut

With hubris and a pricking swagger
The leader of the free world struts about
While the little people look on,
Innocent bystanders, gawping crowds
Whose freedom has been exchanged for license.

This leader and his kind, exalted cocks,
No better than arrogant poultry,
Straddle the pecking order, smug and fat,
Stare beady-eyed down scowling beaks
Flap their almost flightless wings.

They strut across the world's podiums
With cackling pride and self-regard
Elbowing one another, jockeying for position,
Shaking hands as if politeness were a contest,
Arms locked, unblinking eyes, who dares wins.

Photo opportunities: line them up,
Smiles, cold beneath eyes that look only
For advantage; images captured,
Our strong and solid-seeming leaders
Laugh to hide their bickering
Sup and glug the banquets dry
Fiddle, with mysterious handshakes,
By secret signs, trade alliances,
With extravagant flourishes turn
To face the adherent herds
And gush their triumph.

And if, like roosters caught on the hop,
Their bobbing heads were held down to the ground
And a finger drawn to infinity beyond their gaze
These preening creatures would stay completely still
Hypnotised by a trick…

…as they are so easily hypnotized
By power and wealth, the prizes of state.

And if like cockerels the day before market
They find themselves selected, the chosen ones,
To lead the feast. Will they have the slightest doubt
It is not an honour?

Even when the butcher wryly wrings their necks,
Chops off their heads and hangs them
Bloodily dripping on hooks.

For all their grooming, all their power
And elevator shoes, like capons to the knife
Such autocrats fall foul, like fowl, and find
The banqueting, so long begun,
Is on themselves.

© BH, 2017

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You guessed it. I was thinking of Trump… and the many others like him who pose before the masses in self-aggrandisement. 

To be specific, I was thinking about how, a few days ago, Trump pushed through the European leaders to get to the front of the heap; how he puffed his chest out and adjusted his jacket round his belly.

More generally, and this is for all the troughers whose snouts are still damp with gravy from the gravy train. Those men (they are mostly men) in tailored suits that still look shabby and who give us crumbs from their tables. Those who line up in carefully arranged groups to appear august and strong while we are left, as ever, to wallow in their dregs.

By the way, this piece isn't connected with the Karen Griffin recent beheading stunt (it was actually written before it). I'm being metaphorical for one thing and also I was thinking more of the imperial stupidity of the great. For example, the bewilderment in Cauceascu's eyes when his crowds turned on him. Any leader with despotic tendencies is usually too arrogant to be reproachable - until it's too late.