Who has the king’s ear this morning, good people?
Who has the king’s ear this morning, good friends?
His daughter, her husband and others much like them.
Already at breakfast they’re toasting his health,
Repeating his thoughts, sometimes using the same words,
Saying his wisdom’s as great as his wealth.
Who has the king’s ear this noontide, sad people?
Who has the king’s ear this noontide, sad friends?
A seer who sees enemies all around him,
Plots against borders and nobles and throne.
A word against one spells a menace to all of them
That can be struck down by His Highness alone.
Who has the king’s ear this evening, proud people?
Who has the king’s ear this evening, proud friends?
A soldier who calls for immediate action,
The muzzling of heralds, the jester’s arrest.
Opponents like them have no place in the kingdom.
Their silence, he counsels, is all for the best.
Who has the king’s ear this daybreak, glad people?
Who has the kings’ ear this daybreak, glad friends?
The left was last seen in the mouth of a stray dog.
The right’s on a pike with the rest of his head.
The estates have presented demands to the new king,
Who’s signing a charter that he hasn’t read.
READ MORE
Waters To Trump: Only ‘Weak’, ‘Impotent’ Leader Focused on Attacking the Press [The Hill]
Historian Timothy Snyder: It’s Pretty Much Inevitable That Trump Will Try To Stage A Coup and Overthrow Democracy [Salon]
J.D. Smith’s fourth collection, The Killing Tree, was published in 2016. His poem “Aleppo Epitaph” previously appeared in Poets Reading the News, and his individual poems have appeared in Dark Mountain, The New Verse News, Terrain and Zócalo, and he has received a Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. He works as an editor and writer in Washington, DC, where he lives with his wife Paula Van Lare, their rescue animals and a great deal of trepidation.
Illustration by Ivan Bilibin.
