You know why I dislike Donald Trump?
Because I can remember American poet Robert Frost reciting his poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.
In his 80s then, Frost had written movingly of everything from winter’s beauty to the death of a farm hand. He wrote a poem for the inauguration, but the light was too bright for him to read it so, as poets have done since the first of days, he spoke his own words, reciting another of his poems from memory.
Try, if you can, to picture that old lion of a poet spending his words on Donald Trump, the king of cheap, the man who gold plates everything in his house because his soul is from the dollar store.
Try, if you can, to imagine Donald Trump magically acquiring enough discernment to know good poetry from bad, to know the difference between Kanye West and Robert Frost, to know that a linebacker’s records don’t matter, but the words of poets count. Donald Trump is a soft, brown sliver of decay picked out from between the pointed teeth of celebrity. Imagine him talking to a poet, a man who can stop time with his words. If Trump owns a book of poetry, it is bound in handsome leather, it is a first edition, it is worth millions, and it is unread.
Try, if you can, to imagine Donald Trump reading a poem to himself, when no one’s around, for the beauty of the words. Try to imagine Donald Trump realizing that words are bigger than he is, that three or four words, in the right order, with the right sound, are more of a palace than any grossly tacky casino, worth more than the numbers and words you write on a check.
Try to imagine Donald Trump writing a poem, a poem to a woman perhaps. Try to imagine him weighing words until he can describe the curve of her forehead, the light that walks with her into a room.
At most you can imagine him with his forehead wrinkled, asking a servant, “Hey, what rhymes with ‘her butt.'”
“Fat slut, sir?” the servant helpfully responds.
Imagine Donald Trump as Winston Churchill, trying to capture the bravery of British pilots who fought the Nazis in the skies over London. Churchill, that fat elitist, growled about so much being owed by so many to so few, another old poet throwing words into the mouth of time.
“It’s been, I mean, it’s been a disaster up there,” Trump would have said. “But those guys, the pilots, they’ve been great, really great.”
Franklin Roosevelt, another rich man who liked poetry, told a starving America that, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He had nothing left to say, but, after the words, he created millions of jobs, put food into millions of skinny bellies and hired artists to write and paint and dance.
“These failing newspapers,” Trump would have said, “they write slanted stories about how people are hungry. It’s so bad.”
I’m writing this in New England. The trees outside are black in the moonlight. I’m going to read a little poetry to myself tonight. Robert Frost.
I dislike Donald Trump because I remember Robert Frost speaking his poetry from memory at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, because I’ve heard Churchill and Roosevelt, their words still full of life, even in fuzzy old recordings.
The good poetry always wins. The good art always lasts. Poured concrete casinos crumble like sandcastles.
Marc Dion, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a reporter and columnist for The Herald News, the daily newspaper of his hometown, Fall River, Mass. For more on Dion, go to go to www.creators.com.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.