Lincoln’s birthday is next week, and we wonder what he would think of the foul words and perverse statements — no humor, no sense of irony — that spill from the mouth of our current “leader.” When our ideals and our language are being desecrated on a daily basis, this is no time to be silent. Poets can be jerks like anyone else, but at least we should try to defend the importance of words. We should be clear, as well as worried — but without being solemn all the time. Here, spinning off “In Flanders Fields,” John McCrea’s rondeau about the dead in World War I, this poem tries to sharpen the contrast between the Republican currently in the White House and the one honored with a memorial on the National Mall.

In Slanders Field

In Slanders Field the whoppers grow

like rancid weeds below the glow

of DC lights and Lincoln’s eyes

twisting up his marbled thighs

till even Abe gets vertigo

They’re leaking from the White House so

his furrowed brow bends to and fro

sensing nearby stains and sties

in Slanders Field

Four score and seven years ago

his speech began in pensive slow