The Donald Trump Version of Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is Both Amazing and Terrifying

You might know Murray Attaway as the lead singer and guitarist for the band Guadalcanal Diary, or for his solo career, but today? You know him as the man who re-wrote W.B. Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming” in the voice of Donald Trump. This is brilliant work, and also sort of terrifying, and also it might ruin poetry for you forever. It takes a truly disturbed mind to read Yeats’ post-WW1 vision of the impending apocalypse, and recognize a similar theme in Trump’s rambling diatribes on the coming terrorist horde. Yeats, I’d have to imagine, is currently spinning in his grave.

Attaway was the man for the job, and the result, originally posted on his Facebook account, is hilarious. He’s given us permission to share it with you, so brace yourselves for a dark, chilling prophecy:

The Second Coming
by Donald J. Trump
from an idea by W. B. Yeats

So, we’ve got all this turning, right?
Lots of movement in the gyre
No one knows what a gyre is, but I’ve got smart people on it
The best people, really
The falcon can’t even hear this falconer
We all know why that is, right?
Because this falconer we’ve got, he’s a loser!
Things falling apart everywhere, the center with no hold
A center can’t be held by a loser!
Blood everywhere, and why? No conviction!
Our enemies? They’ve got conviction. I admire them, I do!
You know who else has conviction? I do!
Wait until you see my conviction. It’s huge!

Oh, believe me, there’s something big on it’s way
Straight out of the desert, like the sphinx or whatever
Makes me sick to think of it
It’s coming, what do we do?
Well, it’s not gonna make it past the wall we’re building
The best wall, really, everyone says so
That’s right, we’re gonna build a wall to keep all these sphinxes out!

So, you got this thing, whatever, this group of sphinxes
Moving slowly, slouching, really
Trust me, they’re on their way here
But first they’ve gotta stop in Bethlehem
We all know what Bethlehem is, right?
It’s where God was born!
Read your bible, 2 Corinthians
Two Corinthians walk into a bar, it says
You know where that bar was? Bethlehem!
You know where Bethlehem is? A couple of miles from Jerusalem, that’s where!
That’s right, these sphinxes are coming towards Jerusalem, apparently to have babies.
That’s right: more sphinxes!
I’m the only one who can stop them; these other guys, they’re choke artists
No more sphinxes on my watch!