His gilded towers gleam with gold,
He calls each boast a fact well told,
He turns each rally into noise,
Then claims his lies are bought and sold.
He turns each rally into noise,
He sells his anger as a choice,
He brands dissent as fake and sly,
Then makes the crowd become his voice.
He brands dissent as fake and sly,
He says the tariffs make us fly,
At Mar-a-Lago, mirrors gleam,
While prices rise, he asks us why.
At Mar-a-Lago, mirrors gleam,
He crowns his bluster as a dream,
His golden throne reflects the night,
Then calls the chaos his regime.
Val’s prompt: Power in the hot seat
This week, your challenge is to write a funny roast or a strong complaint about a government leader or another person who has power.
Your poem should use a form called an interlocking rubaiyat.
Here is how the form works:
Write between 4 and 8 stanzas.
Each stanza has 4 lines.
Each line should have 8 syllables.
The rhymes link one stanza to the next.
The rhyme pattern looks like this:
AABA / BBCB / CCDC / DDED
The letters show which lines should rhyme. Lines with the same letter rhyme with each other.
For example, in the first stanza, lines 1, 2, and 4 rhyme. Line 3 has a new rhyme. That new rhyme is then used in lines 1, 2, and 4 of the next stanza. This is what makes the stanzas “interlock,” or connect with one another.
Your poem may be funny, sharp, frustrated, playful, or serious. Use humor and strong images to show what bothers you about the person in power.
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