Spontaneous Combustion

  Seeing wisps of blonde and orange perfectly coiffed hair,
    Parted to the right in an extreme comb-over

  There he was sitting in thought in the Oval Office next to the fireplace, looking opulent
The gilded gold fixtures, the shiny extravagance, and him resplendent with his comb-over

  And as he fell asleep thinking of the nation, a stray tiny ember caught the hem of his
    Trousers and he went up like a Roman candle unbound

  The orange makeup melting down his face, down his neck, and into his
    Shirt collar and he raised himself of a sudden and was walking around

  Like an inflamed zombie, like a Frankenstein on fire, awkward, stumbling, a TV whiz
    Those reality shows, but now in self-immolation, hellbound

  And the Secret Service ran in with fire extinguishers and blankets, chaos ensuing
    Wrapping the president in blankets and spraying him with fire retardant

  But how could this have happened, here in this Oval Office, and all that ungluing
    Could Humpty Dumpty be patched up regardless of all his believers still ardent

  Whoa to the nation! Whoa to the many! How so few with such few credentials
    Could do so much damage in such little time

  And there he lay in blanketed embers, like some dead witch from Oz with few prudentials
    Would he recover his limited acumen amidst all his administration’s crime

  Uncertain to be honest but the image of him inflamed in the Oval Office, hardly presidential
Emptily grabbing at the air, as the fire licked his bodily form, ending his authority in prime time

J.P. Linstroth has a PhD (D.Phil.) in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford. He is an Adjunct Professor at Palm Beach State College and the author of several books: Marching Against Gender Practice: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland (2015, Lexington Books); The Forgotten Shore (Poetic Matrix Press, 2017); Epochal Reckonings (Proverse Publishers HK, 2020, Winner of Proverse Prize 2019); Politics and Racism Beyond Nations: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Crises (2022, Palgrave Macmillan); and Swimming in Blue Shadows: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems (2022, Proverse Hong Kong, Proverse Supplementary Publication Prize). Read other articles by J.P..