The Ballad of Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone, Oliver Stone,
usually lands on his feet
wherever he's thrown.

It's a bit upsetting to think
that the man's no longer
respected as much as he was
even when he came out with Nixon,
peaking with JFK and Natural Born Killers,
too controversial to be understood,
too brilliant to be heard,
except now he's going to
visit the one subject
everyone is going to have
something to say about again,
GWB, whom he should know
better than anyone else
but instead seems to have
taken the popular route,
except he's making a game
of it still; he's going
to make people see G
as a person, even as a joke
but as a person and not just
pariah, a legacy who knows
what it means to cower
before history, long
before he had to.

That's what he's doing next,
that's where he's landing,
nearly always on his feet,
looking ahead so intently
he never knows exactly
where he's going, and it
won't matter because
people will tell him,
even if he doesn't agree.

Oliver Stone, Oliver Stone,
usually lands on his feet
wherever he's thrown.