Munich Security Conference, February 2025

by Myles Weber (June 2025)

The new vice president sounds downright mean.
Pull your weight, he tells the Europeans.
No, really, guys, we’re serious this time.
Eighty years is long enough.
–
A German official approaches the lectern
and weeps.  Can anyone blame the man?
The Teutonic waterworks prove impactful.
Their source garners solace from other delegates.
–
A time of war is no time to pick a fight,
console the envoys as they wipe his tears.
Let’s teach them.  Slurs work in both directions.
For this we’ll make the Americans pay.

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Myles Weber is a professor of English at Winona State University in Minnesota. He is the author of the scholarly monograph Consuming Silences: How We Read Authors Who Don’t Publish (U of Georgia Press).

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