The Windmills of His Mind

In the northern Summer of 2025, we learned that former President Joe Biden is writing a memoir of his Presidency. He also mentioned that a number of European leaders have kept in contact with him, seeking his advice and continuing participation in affairs of the World.

We have commented (almost) enough on the Biden Imbroglio, and don’t want (too much) to kick a man when he’s on the ground, so instead let’s hum a little tune, with apologies to Michel Legrand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Noel Harrison:

“Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel

Like a tumble-up on Air Force One or a Chinese spy balloon

Like a lazy-boy collapsing on a swimming beach in June

Like the shadow of two flapping hands that darken a dazed face

And the world is a banana whither you slip into space – 

Where jousting-sticks tilt blind at the windmills of your mind  //

Like a tunnel where you left papers and fading memories

Down a dark hollow dysnomia where you may have left your keys

Like a door always receding in a half forgotten dream

Or the wavy patterns tracing-out yet one more urinous stream

Like a clock whose hands confuse you as to time and as to day

Delivering agitation as you orient your way

Like confusion that you find in the windmills of your mind //

Words that jangle on a tablet, words that jangle on a card

Why did two terms go so quickly? Was it all without regard?

You walk along the arrows painted yellow on the floor

Is the sound of distant snoring just a sound you made before?

Faces hanging in a hallway or the fragment of a song

Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?

When you knew that it was over, that you couldn’t run again

Neither how nor where nor why, nor what or who or when //

A cognitive decline; a change in thought and mood

A lack of depth perception, withdrawal from getting booed

Lost in familiar places, familiar tasks undone

Complete stagnation in a soul forever born to run