It Couldn't Be Verse

Dowd - NY Times -- A new book, subtitled "The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld," slyly arranges Rummy's real quotes into verse, like "Gerbil": "I feel like a gerbil/I get on that thing/And I run like hell."

Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic congressman from Ohio who's running for president, admits to writing hundreds of poems. Asked the subject matter, he replies: "Metaphysics. Love. Urban America."

"There was a whole series about life in the city — kind of a combination of Langston Hughes and Salvador Dali," says the former mayor of Cleveland. "Under the Patriot Act, they may be seized." Or executed.

Jimmy Carter published a book of verse about peace and geese. "The geese passed overhead/and then without a word/we went down to a peaceful sleep/marveling at what we'd seen and heard." (That deserves the Nobel Geese Prize.)

Senator Kerry let slip a lyrical side, reciting a poem of his own composition: "I had a talk with a deer today/we met upon the road some way . . . between his frequent snorts/He asked me if I sought his pelt/cause if I did he said he felt/quite out of sorts." So very Robert Frost (D-Mass.).