The Ballad of John McCain

Amok! Rage runs long

Through bared teeth

And desperate chuckles

You demand, you seeth

My friends,

my countrymen

My fellow Americans.

Grin through crying rage

Senator John McCain

Statesman John McCain

You Statesman, gallant soldier

and maverick

The boy held his breath

Face turning blue

What did they do to you?

What did they achieve?

Handsome at parties

Defender of the weak

Wrestler, captain, pilot,

Leader, Naval officer

Exploded, busted, knocked

Time and again

You were almost my age

when the torture began

Dragged through water

Stabbed, crushed, in misery

Beaten, starved, left to rot

Years of silence and cruelty

Drink now, they said

Quench your thirst and go

Fuck you, you said, no -

My men must go first

What did they do to you?

What did that achieve?

It made you a man

with nothing to lose

Anger, and rust, iron and shackle

Darkness, water, dysentery,

Arms ruined, hair gone white

Hanging in the dark alone

No one who lived there

No one who paid like you

Came out wanting any of

what came before the hell

Your dreams before agony

Now broken and lost

Those dreams that you held

severed, unsound, gone

Free at last, you see

Your wife, crushed like you

Two crippled lovers

Strangers with dead eyes

They pilloried you

For leaving her there

How could you stay

After what you'd seen

Reminded of a man -

Dark hair, grinning, jostling

Arms up over his head

Telling dirty jokes

Well, no more, this man

Now stiff, expectant, angry,

Broken, re-assembled

Then unrecognized

Gone is the wrestler,

The history buff,

Enter the maverick  -

Angry, bitter and tough

What wiles you employ

What insults, what jibes

a re-invented man

A hero ne'er lies

The stars and stripes

Combatants' dead silences

Carry them over the threshold

Of your country

My friends, you say

"My friends, my friends,"

My enemies, my compatriots

My betrayers, my regrets

Your regrets most of all,

Raw sadness, slow death

Soft souls back home

Crying about not having left

You earn your fiery outburst

The cockeyed sneer

You've trademarked the look

That says - death is near

Iran, Vietnam, Syria, Egypt

Cry for heroes, saviors, mavericks

To save them, protect them

From imprisonment, coercion

No torture, no corruption

Not on my watch,

War is the switch

That keeps you going

Without war we sink,

We give up on brothers,

Fathers, and mothers -

And prisoners, and lovers

Try and failed to win

Fail, and try, and fail

Then this upstart

Destroy him at any cost

Turncoat Steve Schdmidt

Didn't vet her

Brother in arms Chuck Hagel

is no better

After all the sacrifice.

All the tears, the rage

Senator John McCain

Will not stand for it

To the prisoner, the prison

Is the worst place of all

It's where arms are broken

And big men become small

So, to the last, says McCain

We go in and fight

We get them alive

We teach them what's right

Mottled, pale, stricken

Grimacing through hearings

Letting the anger spill over

Like water from a bamboo sieve

Statesman McCain stood up for it

But he could not stand on him own

Those else who stood in his stead

They own him now

This good, honorable man

Is in a pocket

Inside that pocket

Is painted the world