While speaking to reporters Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she will be reading a poem about Ukraine written by U2 singer Bono at the annual Friends of Ireland St. Patrick’s Day lunch at the U.S Capitol.
These plans were not well-received by observers (“This is a joke right?” tweeted former Obama administration official Tommy Vietor), but Pelosi went on to read the poem at the lunch anyway.
What resulted was, well, you can see for yourself in footage from CSPAN.
“I got this message this morning from Bono,” Pelosi said at the lunch. “And most of us, whether we’re in Ireland, or here, whatever it is, Bono has been a very Irish part of our lives.”
The San Francisco Democrat then read the poem, printed in its entirety below (no, we do not know where the line breaks are, forgive us Bono):
“Oh St. Patrick, he drove out the snakes, with his prayers, but that’s not all it takes. For this smoke symbolizes the evil that arises and hides in your heart as it breaks. And the evil risen from the darkness that lives in some men, but in sorrow and fear, that’s when saints can appear, to drive out those old snakes once again and a struggle for us to be free from this psycho in this human family, Ireland’s sorrow and pain is now the Ukraine, and St. Patrick’s name is now Zelenskyy.”
