by Stewart Alter
Unsure of himself, he decided to run
For president and command thousands
Of journalists, zealous and massed,
To invade the shores of his private past.
Muster, marshal, scatter and batter his walls,
Interview everyone he’s ever known.
Hunt down each hint, every shadow and shape.
Investigate, interrogate, get it all on tape.
For there must be a theme behind this tale,
Some furtive facts that can explain the plot,
Crucial episodes that changed his course,
Obscure to him but witnessed by a source.
He has tried to unearth these secrets himself
But his defensive vines were too thick to hack,
Jungle-tangled, with no sense of bearing,
He could spot no sight of a sunlit clearing.
So set loose the scoop-attacking troops
That they might draft an obit-befitting script,
Not the surface bullets of triumph and strife
But the buried motives that define a life.
Stewart Alter, who joined LP2 in the Fall of 2020, has been writing poetry and painting intermittently before, during and now after a long career in business journalism and corporate communications.