‘Xanadu Revisited’: A Poem on D.C. Corruption, by Phil S. Rogers

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Xanadu Revisited

after “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Coleridge

__In Washington aristocrats
__ordain corruption happily:
__here the Potomac River flows
__past million dollar homes in rows,
____no common man you’ll see.
__Declared a district not a state
__where crooks decide our nation’s fate
in fancy restaurants where they all dine
on escargot and sip imported gin,
yet all the working rabble they malign,
as they contrive their next primary win.
Their high-power lawyers smoke Cuban cigars,
Mercedes and Rolls transporting these stars.
Fenced in mansions of the rich lobbyists,
wholly shrouded by the late morning mist;
walled in estates with security abound
and wealthy senators are chauffeured around.
The Potomac rushes on its way to the sea
past gardens luxuriantly maintained
(respectability must be proclaimed),
no question of status can there ever be.
Thousands of snoots who think they’re Kubla Khan,
yet have no hint of all the scorn they spawn!

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Phil S. Rogers is a sixth generation Vermonter, age 72, now retired, and living in Texas. He served in the United States Air Force and had a career in real estate and banking.  He previously published Everlasting Glory, a historical work that tells the story of each of the men from Vermont that was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Civil War.