Let us go then, you and I,
While Newt Gingrich is lying down to cry
Like a patient etherized upon a table.
Let us go to one-night town hall meetings
On half-deserted streets
The muttering retreats
Of endless nights of our campaign,
Nights where once again
We follow our tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To ask the audience an overwhelming question.
Oh, do not ask “What is it?”
Let’s just go and make another visit.
***
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that I meet;
There will be time to fix my hair,
[They will say: “How his hair’s beyond compare.”]
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and throw a question on my plate;
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the interview that’s on TV.
There is time for a minute that slips and stops
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have measured out my life with flips and flops.
And I have known the eyes already, known them all –
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned against the wall,
Then how should I begin
To have the strength to force the moment to its crisis
To have bitten off the matter with a smile
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To say “I am Mitt, come back from dread
And I will tell you all, I shall tell you all!”
***
And would it have been worth it after all,
Would it have been worthwhile
After eyebrows raised and clearings of the throat
After silent pauses that say your cause is lost,
And this, and so much more?
But it’s impossible to say just what I mean!
Would it have been worthwhile if they,
Rising from the table and putting on their coats
And turning toward the door, should say
“That is not it at all,
You are not conservative at all.”
***
No! I am not Newt Gingrich, nor was meant to be.
I was born by temperament
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse.
But I wear expensive trousers,
And I have seen the moment of my greatness glow
For I have worked within the private sector
And done quite well there as you know.
I shall wear Bermuda shorts and walk upon the beach,
The beach below my house in beautiful La Jolla.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do believe they also sing to me.
As I linger by the chambers of the sea
I hear the people calling me
The people of this wondrous land
I wait for them to take my hand.
While Newt Gingrich is lying down to cry
Like a patient etherized upon a table.
Let us go to one-night town hall meetings
On half-deserted streets
The muttering retreats
Of endless nights of our campaign,
Nights where once again
We follow our tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To ask the audience an overwhelming question.
Oh, do not ask “What is it?”
Let’s just go and make another visit.
***
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that I meet;
There will be time to fix my hair,
[They will say: “How his hair’s beyond compare.”]
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and throw a question on my plate;
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the interview that’s on TV.
There is time for a minute that slips and stops
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have measured out my life with flips and flops.
And I have known the eyes already, known them all –
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned against the wall,
Then how should I begin
To have the strength to force the moment to its crisis
To have bitten off the matter with a smile
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To say “I am Mitt, come back from dread
And I will tell you all, I shall tell you all!”
***
And would it have been worth it after all,
Would it have been worthwhile
After eyebrows raised and clearings of the throat
After silent pauses that say your cause is lost,
And this, and so much more?
But it’s impossible to say just what I mean!
Would it have been worthwhile if they,
Rising from the table and putting on their coats
And turning toward the door, should say
“That is not it at all,
You are not conservative at all.”
***
No! I am not Newt Gingrich, nor was meant to be.
I was born by temperament
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse.
But I wear expensive trousers,
And I have seen the moment of my greatness glow
For I have worked within the private sector
And done quite well there as you know.
I shall wear Bermuda shorts and walk upon the beach,
The beach below my house in beautiful La Jolla.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do believe they also sing to me.
As I linger by the chambers of the sea
I hear the people calling me
The people of this wondrous land
I wait for them to take my hand.
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