Plague Songs - Shakespearean Tragedy / by Rich Hobbs

They’ve painted King Lear Orange!

He’s mad as mad can be!

Divides the state! Will Ivanka

Be given Tennessee?

They’ve painted Hamlet Orange!

Does that arras hide Pence?

Does Dad still haunt? Melania!

Got to a nunnery hence!

Othello too is Orange!

With Green Eyed Monster pout

Paranoia drives him mad!

Melania! Watch out!

They’ve painted King Lear Orange!

On and on he rages!

I know this is Shakespearean

But it goes on for ages!

They painted Hamlet Orange!

To quit or not to quit

Has never even crossed his mind.

This soliloquy’s shit!

Now Caesar’s also Orange!

Though stabbed any amount

He yells at the conspirators

“Fake News! Recount! Recount!”

And King Lear is still Orange

Beneath the roaring sky!

It’s Tragedy, so let’s assume

Eventually he’ll die.

Although Hamlet’s still Orange!

And still he won’t decide!

But Christ! This is a Tragedy!

Isn’t it time he died?

Falstaff, Prince Hal, Mark Antony!

All Orange too! What class!

But though we all love Tragedy

Being replayed as Farce

Paint no more heroes Orange:

Such work need not detain us.

Just drop the first three syllables

From off “Coriolanus”.