The Bard of Brussels

Who knew that the EU prez, the prosaically named (and looking) Herman Van Rompuy, was such a freaking Lord Byron (had the randy Lord penned anally retentive Japanese verse instead of epic poems like Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, that is)? The timesonline reports:

Toads mate passionately, a bird stands on one leg and several dead fish float on a pond.

While Europe struggles to emerge from recession, Herman Van Rompuy, its first President, aimed to get back to the “simple reality” of life yesterday by publishing a collection of his poetic thoughts. Haiku Herman — as the 62-year-old former Belgian Prime Minister is known because of his fondness for the traditional 17-syllable Japanese poem — insisted that he was as modest as the verse he often produces during boring political meetings.

Dismissed by Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party as a “damp rag” and “the quiet assassin of European democracy”, Mr Van Rompuy was chosen by the EU’s 27 national leaders as their first permanent president last November. Since then he has largely shunned the limelight and his one poem about Brussels, the city in which he is king, suggests that he still feels overwhelmed by his new role:

“Different colours, tongues, towers and gods / I search my way.”..

It's so beeyootiful. He's a regular Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, rolled into one. Let's see what he can come up with using the words "volcano," "ashes" and "sharia".