Take two was inspired by my recent reading of 'The Amateur ' by Robert Littell. It's a literary cold war thriller about a backroom CIA cryptologist who turns rogue assassin to avenge the murder of his girlfriend by a red brigade faction in Europe, because the CIA refuse to act even though they know who the culprits are. The grieving cryptologist succeeds by trial and error, but that's only a fraction of the story. (You'll also find out how he discovered that Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare.) If you like cryptology, espionage and brilliant writing, I highly recommend it.
The administration initiated a 'fast-track' no-bid project to to drain the pool, seal seams and coat the basin bottom in “American flag blue”. The plan envisaged a one-to-two-week timeline and costs were estimated at $1.5m-$2m. Contracts went to companies whose owners were neighbours of Trump in Florida and donors to his presidential re-election fund.
Which leaves us with take three, all about fat narcissus and the reflecting pool, which also happens to be the title of my latest poem. (We'll get to that in a while.)
Donald J Trump is well known for wanting to put his odious and overblown personal stamp on various institutions and symbols of American civic life. First of all there is the ballroom under construction at the White House. Then he tried (and failed) to get both New York's Penn Station and Washington's Dulles International Airport renamed after himself. He did however succeed in getting Palm Beach International Airport renamed President Donald J Trump International Airport. Emboldened, he then renamed the US Institute of Peace the Donald J Trump US Institute of Peace and temporarily added his name to the Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts, though that has since been removed by order of the courts.
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| Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool |
His campaign of tasteless self-aggrandisement didn't go quite so far as renaming the Lincoln Memorial after himself, though he did have plans for redesigning the iconic Reflecting Pool to his taste ready for the recent 250th Anniversary of US Independence celebrations.
The Reflecting Pool, which holds four million gallons of water and was last renovated in 2012 at a cost of $34m, was not to Trump's liking. Specifically, he didn't approve of the grey stone it was constructed from. In April of this year he commissioned a transformation. "The original gray stone was never good. It never had the color people wanted, but now it’s going to have a great color.” (People? What people?) That colour was going to be "American flag blue", like a Mar-a-Lago swimming pool.
Work was delayed while legal challenges were made on the grounds of lack of competitive tendering and concerns about historic conservation, but the project ground on through May. Once the blue lining was in place, Trump's motorcade even drove through the drained, coated basis to show off the magnificent new hue. The Pool was then refilled with another four million gallons of water.
It wasn't long, however, before problems began to show themselves. The blue liner began to peel and bubble. Algae started to bloom and cloud the water. Maintenance crews poured in hydrogen peroxide to try and clean up the problem. A nanobubble ozone technology water purification system was installed. The costs of the makeover climbed to $16m (eight times the original estimate) and the water was still scummy green.
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| Reflecting Pool after Trump's 'Renovation' |
As Independence Day celebrations approached, anti-algae and clean-up efforts continued apace but the problems persisted. In the event, soon after the July 4th celebrations, the Pool was emptied again and then it was revealed that the root cause was “a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool”. (Read for that - a cost-cutting project with inadequate materials and sub-par contractors.) The government conceded that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by the interior department.
... here's that poem, based on a Greek myth, by way of Ovid, in which Narcissus fell in love with himself on seeing his reflection in a pool of water, giving us narcissism - a self-centred personality disorder, marked by grandiosity, excessive need for attention and admiration, and an impaired ability to empathize. I've subverted, obviously.
Fat Narcissus And The Reflecting Pool
Oi Ovid! Some modern metamorph this is.
See fat narcissus, more bloated ogre
than handsome toga'd praetor, kneeling
by his scummy algae covered pool, cursing
vandals or goths - he doesn't know
the difference, doesn't care - for a loss of face.
Of course the restoration
which was meant to glorify Trump
and the Nation on its big anniversary
was a dumb, cheapskate plan
given without tender to a bunch
of his out of state cowboys,
riding roughshod over all concerns,
executed without due diligence
and ending in expensive disaster.
Yet all the orange buffoon can make out
as his simple brain tries to plumb
the metaphorical depths
of his repair gone wrong
is that someone, not him,
must have fucked up and yet
he's the one looking like a clown
in the ripples of green scum.
It's been a giant cock-up for the Pres.
and it's being whispered
in the corridors of the Capitol
by senators of a back-stabbing bent
that he's less Narcissus poeticus
and more Amorphophallus titanum
one of the smelliest plants on Earth,also nicknamed the corpse flower.
Thanks for reading, keep resisting. S ;-)
3 comments:
That's made my day. 😂
I love that Trump has come unstuck over this and the poem is a delight. Clever to thread the Roman/Latin imagery through it. Let's hope these are the last days of the Empire.
Well said Steve. And another clever, pointed poem. An opportunity too good to resist? Pleased you rose to the occasion. 👏
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