Friday, February 17, 2017

Nathanael O'Reilly #7 The Confessions of Donald J. Trump

The Confessions of Donald J. Trump*

Well, the leaks are real.
I mean, the leaks are real.
The leaks are absolutely real.

The news is fake because
so much of the news is fake.
I was coming into office.

When I looked at the information,
I said, “I don't think he did anything wrong.”
If anything, he did something right.

I will be honest and I have all my life.
And it was nasty. They totally
misrepresented those very wonderful

women. We had dinner
with Senator Rubio and his wife.
Who is by the way lovely.

I want to find a friendly reporter.
Are you a friendly reporter?
Now, that’s what I call a nice question.

And they’re not doing this for money.
I was given that information.
I was just given it.

We had a very, very big margin.
By the way, it would be great
if we could get along with Russia.

I'm not ranting and raving.
I'm just telling you.
You know, you’re dishonest people.

But, but I’m not ranting and raving.
I love this. I'm having a good time
doing it. I don’t mind bad stories.

I can handle a bad story
better than anybody.
As long as it’s true.

Look, I want to see an honest press.
Yes, oh, this is going to be
a bad question, but that’s OK.

It would be the electric chair.
OK? He should be put in the electric …
You would even call for the institution of the death penalty.

I see tone. You know the word tone.
The tone is such hatred.
And it’s all about unification.

I’ve been talking about that for a long time.
It’s very, very important to me.
See, I know when I should

get good and when I should get bad.
We have made incredible progress.
I don’t think there’s ever been a president

elected who in this short period of time
has done what we’ve done.
Jobs are pouring out of the country.

And he has had a tremendous career.
And he will be I think a fantastic addition.
Some people are so surprised

that we’re having strong borders.
I'm not going to tell you anything
about what I’m going to do.

I'm not going to talk about military stuff.
I don't have to tell you
what I'm going to do in North Korea.

Nuclear holocaust
would be like no other
And I'll get killed ...

I'm not going to tell you.
But hopefully I won’t have to do anything.
But I’m not going to tell you.

I don’t have to tell you.
Your ratings aren’t as good
as some of the other people that are waiting.

I would have fired him
so fast your head would have spun.
Number two, racism, the least racist person.

To be honest, I inherited a mess,
a mess, at home and abroad, a mess.
The stock market has hit record numbers.

Tremendous disservice.
The level of dishonesty is out of control.
We’re going to take care of it all.

ISIS has spread like cancer.
Another mess I inherited.
I don’t want to be hacked.

Hillary Clinton did a reset,
remember with the stupid plastic button
that made us all look like a bunch of jerks?

I have been briefed.
Welcome to the world of the media.
The reporting is fake.

We had Hillary Clinton give Russia
20% of the uranium in our country.
Like lots of things are done with uranium.

Including some bad things.
We’re becoming a drug infested nation.
Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars.

And the wall is going to be a great wall
and it’s going to be a wall negotiated by me.
Every country takes advantage of us almost.

Same thing with Australia.
We’re vetting very, very strongly.
Very, very strongly.

I am the least anti-Semitic person
that you have ever seen in your entire life.
He said it very forcefully.

I guess it was the biggest
electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.
This administration is running like a fine- tuned machine,

despite the fact that I can’t get my cabinet approved.
President Putin called me up very nicely
to congratulate me on the win of the election.

I have nothing to do with Russia.
I told you, I have no deals there,
I have no anything.

I certainly didn’t win by listening to you people.
I didn’t come along and divide this country.
This country was seriously divided before I got here.

I would be your biggest fan in the world if you treated me right.
I’m really not a bad person, by the way.
How many times do I have to answer this question?


* A found poem. All text taken from Trump’s press conference on February 16th, 2017.

8 comments:

  1. Great piece Nathanael. Does DT make it any easier for a cut up?

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  2. I wonder if we should do a Trump anthology
    could be poem for every day of his reign

    ... we'd probably need to start a new blog for it
    but it could be interesting to have a project so directly focussed on a political process, concerning us all, and just as it unfolds

    ??

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    Replies
    1. tempting... but yes as Nathanael says workloads!
      ...yet oh so zeitgeist
      tempting... TRUMPETRY

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  3. Jeffree, many thanks. I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but he certainly comes up with an almost endless number of memorable lines - so many, in fact, that it was hard to choose which ones to use. The only problem is that his vocabulary is so limited and he hardly ever uses a metaphor or a simile, so it's not exactly poetic diction ...

    Kit, I like the idea, but with my heavy teaching load I just don't have the time. There's already a Not My President anthology being put together by some American poets (you could probably find the details via Google), to which I've submitted a different poem. I also don't want to think about Trump every day, but it's kind of hard to avoid.

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    Replies
    1. Just to say - The cut-up poem made popular by Willaim S Burroughs ie. a line of text cut (blindly or otherwise) into smaller pieces/passages and re-arranged randomly or with some systematic process that eventuates in a re-arranged text yet still retains the integrity of the 'whole' ... wierd but wonderful. This practice is also widely used in the visual arts - I certainly utilise it.
      As you say, he certainly comes up with an almost endless number of memorable lines and they have a way of dovetailing so well regardless of the subjects, personalities or situations.
      I didn't intend to bang on but there it is – cut-ups!
      Your piece stands so well. :)

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    2. Thanks, Jeffree. Yes, I guess what I've done is similar to Burroughs technique, but different in that there was no paper involved :) - just digital cut and paste, and I probably only used 10% of the original text, which was quite long.

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  4. maybe
    Donald Trump
    - the poem found!

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  5. Hilarious ! And I admire the fact that you managed to read the whole press conference... because It was (to me personally), impossible to watch more than 23 minutes! As for a new project focused on political issues, why not, I like the idea, but on a long distance run... what regularity are we able to maintain?

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