Beached Whale by Stuart Jay Silverman

In Memory of Donald J. Trump Who,
Biting Off More Than He Could Chew,
Would Rather Choke Than Spit It Out

What seemed to us sportive away,
Where the sea-shelf drops from the land,
Came into the shallows to play
And was tangled up by the sand.

It had air enough to survive,
If only breath were concerned,
But needed the water to thrive
Which lapped at its side and returned.

We rigged up a seine net and winch
To offer some help to the tide,
To rock it away from the pinch
Of the land that was after its hide,

But the land had merely to wait
For the end, in the end, of strength,
And will that runs counter to fate
Would give up on the game at length.

So the hulk that grows by the ton
Deferred to the arrogant flies,
The crabs and the gulls having done
With the damp, disencapsulate eyes,

And what was shows notably less,
As day is succeeded by day,
While wind and the tidal express
Are clearing the remnants away.

When the partisan sun takes a toll,
Will smell, unrecorded by charts,
Erect its invisible shoal
On the ghost of the renegade parts?

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