Simic: The Most Power-Abusing Poet Laureate in History?

Sour old fangs plucked and

Raining ugly from a swollen maw

Which receives a new savory mouthful from above by the tears of its beast

It looks back with downpulled eyes at the blanched columns

As it strides away to that forest. All green black thick unknown. Just forest.

Warshington, DC - After reading this cocky rebuke from Poet Laureate Charles Simic, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) throws the letter down in anger. Leahy, as well as many senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle, believe the surrealist poet may have been overstepping his Constitutional powers lately. In one incident, earlier this year, Simic convened a secret group of CIA operatives to monitor every item purchased in the United States with a credit card held by anyone with an Arabic- or East Asian-”sounding” last name, even if they’re an American citizen. The group was also to apprehend, question, and if it was felt necessary or almost necessary, torture those card holders. The crumpled letter is Simic’s reply to Leahy’s attempts to bring the 69-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner in for a committee investigation.

“In this riposte, Charles is obviously saying, although in a more roundabout way than probably necessary, that he is not a part of the executive branch. Which is supposed to mean that the Constitutional limitations on that branch do not apply to him,” Leahy explains. The chairman’s attempts to rein Simic in are increasingly frustrated by the fact that the poet could probably also claim he is not beholden to the rules for the legislative or the judicial branches as well. “We’ve got to stop this abuse of power, though. And we’ll find a way,” Leahy promises.

“Charlie’s a good man. Tries hard. I stand by him. Furry… He does what poets do excellently,” said President Bush when asked to comment on the many calls for the laureate’s resignation. Also, several worry that the president may not understand the resignation letter even if he got it. “If it’s in any kind of verse, the president may find himself in a fix trying to interpret it,” warns House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

But if he has anything to say about it, Simic isn’t going to be resigning soon. “I’m completely working within the bounds of my office although, admittedly, in a more innovative capacity than my predecessors. Some of them wrote in pure rhyming verse. Some with free-verse. I’m moving into a non-verse, human rights violation-type of scheme. And I think it’s quite powerful,” said Simic.

“No one’s used the office of the poet laureate nearly to this extent ever before in the United States,” says Ted Kooser, laureate from 2004-2006 and author of the massively popular collection “Delights & Shadows.” “The most power any laureate before Simic assumed was when [Rita] Dove, the only limerickcist to hold the post, declared the ‘Man from Nantucket’ should be rewritten with the Man’s dick not so long as that he could actually suck it. This way, parents could feel better about sharing this classic with their children. But what Simic is doing is equivalent to, not only putting the length back into the Man’s dick, but doing so to the point that the dick is so massive, its shadow darkens not just our land, but the whole world and its future and its past,” said Kooser fully aware and proud of his metaphor.

Professional Charles Simic look-a-like