The Reign Of The Duck Poem by Paul Lester

They made a splash from the first
As you might have guessed,
Took off, as if to water,
With their usual sort of zest,
And their fad of a following
Soon outgrew all the rest.

Yes, people had a hankering
For anything that was new
And with every general election
The duck vote grew,
And everyone applauded
Whatever a duck might do.

They claimed to walk on water,
We suppose it was a fact.
It was a bit of a gimmick
But they floated it with tact.
They even got the swans
To join them in a pact.

And for its famous 'goose step'
The goose was introduced.
There was promise of golden eggs;
The voters were seduced.
Can you wonder the great majority
Water fowl produced?

Instead of always complaining
Whenever it started to rain
Now it was obligatory
For people to proclaim
That raining all the time
Was a boon and not a bane.

Webbed feet for footwear
Was sold in all the stores,
Pictures of flying ducks
Adorned all living room walls,
You even remembered to duck
As you went through lowered doors.

People were flipper-flapping
And waddling all around
And 'Quack! Quack! Quack! '
Became the fashionable sound:
And thus the duck philosophy
Was easy to expound.

Instead of reliable doctors
All manner of knowing quacks
Regarded the worsening symptoms
As water off ducks' backs,
And well-feathered journalists
Ducked the obvious facts.

Some said the playing of ducks and drakes
Was sure to lead us astray,
People would be 'out for a duck'
As cricketers might say;
It was 'ducking out ' of matters
So the duck might have its day.

But such critics were accused
Of spreading lame duck talk,
And were told they'd better waddle
Whenever they chose to walk
And if they didn't start to quack
Then they would surely squawk!

Well, some of the critics waddled
And some of them even squawked.
Anti-duck dissension
Was whacked wherever it lurked;
It all going to prove
That duck power worked.

Now gliding over the waters
That cover the social wreck
Goes the stately feathered form
Of the Presidential Duck,
And his happy human followers wave
With a final, drowning 'Quack! '