“Political Poetry”

10/20/2024

Inspiration – Literature

“Political Poetry”

This week I felt moved to indulge my poetic creativity and give you my version of an Op Ed for this season of choices. Please Vote!

A Balancing Act – or,

Caution: the next step you take may be your own

Balance your balancing act,

Assume a juggling stance,

And read your post-traumatic

Central nervous system

Owners manual thoroughly,

BEFORE you begin!

Thank you …

In this, the latest chapter,

Of my never-ending book of alternative visions,

I begin to stir out of a state of

Terminal disillusionment,

Attempt to find my cosmic-comic center,

My congressional representatives’

Personal phone numbers,

And/or the purpose of life itself.

A wise man once said,

“Weary eyes frequently lose their focus”.

And further, that

“We are sure to forfeit our future,

If we remain forever frozen

In this fast-forward

State of social immobility.”

Some would say

Life has become a corporate carnival.

We are being drowned out,

By the billionaires’ big brass bands,

Forgotten by incumbent politicians

Only to be digitally re-mastered

For nefarious purposes - In a galaxy far, far away.

I say,

We have been stripped of our equilibrium by

An illuminati of capitalistic conspirators,

(Bankers, lawyers, and industry chiefs),

Who snake oil their small print disclaimers,

And subjugate the quivering masses to

A slow and systematic smothering

Made manifest by their

Self-serving, power-grabbing, fascist edicts

.

We have become numb

To the carcinogenic greed and corruption

Decimating our beloved democratic process.

We, the people, momentarily mesmerized by

Medusa’s stony stare

Stare blankly as the ultimate grifter,

Our would-be grand marshal,

Sternly marshals us on;

The masses shuffling, muffled

In a plebeian parade of perpetual paralysis.

Frozen in the oncoming concentration of headlights,

Headline proclaims: “It’s All for the Greater Good!”

Especially for the poor poor and all those

Hungry, harried, and huddled masses

Yearning to be,

Well, you know… free,

Or some such thing.

Suspending belief,

We have relinquished our advantage.

The world has tilted on its axis,

It has made of our idealism

A tumbling of clowns.

Our Reality has become

A restricted band-width,

A myopic point of view.

The contentious influence of

Cyberspace memes, soundbites,

And AI chicanery,

Lights our way.

This plethora of

Regurgitated misinformation to become

The mother of all Fake News.

And now,

Electronic election rigging misgivings,

Back-door computer hacking,

And militant political agendas

Skew the nature of fact and fantasy.

Partisanship maneuvering

And unforeseen expenses

Make fiscal responsibility

Harder to have and to hold.

Civil unrest,

Obscures our honeymoon optimism,

Like dark clouds on the horizon,

A flood of disasters,

And one-too-many fires burning out of control.

How is it that we keep on tripping,

Slipping,

Skipping,

Over the self-centered root of all evil?

It is the art of misdirection

That makes for great magicians,

And all of the politicians

Who ever wished they could be.

In the meantime,

You've got your per-election peaceful protest intrusions,

Your nonsensical he said - she said debates,

All the alien aliens you could ever imagine,

And a shit-load of would-be terrorists to fill your plate.

You've got your cops and Brothers to kill or be killed,

Statues to pull down,

The inner-city homeless to shame.

Students who fail to pay their unreasonable debts, to berate.

You've got your mass murders to pin on the poor and insane.

Mexican, Iranians, Chinese and Russians to blame.

Prisons to fill,

And the fate of the Kardashians to ponder.

Not to mention,

The non-threat of global warming

To be casually considered.…

And you must do it today! Today! Today!

All lined up and waiting, they are;

Waiting to distract even

The most vigilant of home-grown insurgents.

While everything, everywhere else,

Whirls elliptically on,

In our never-ending,

Slow-spinning,

Decent into-the-depths-of-hell, spiral.

“Sleep,” she says, “Sleeeeep! Sleeeeep!

You are getting sleepy.

Your eyelids feel like lead.

You cannot keep them open.

The world is fading, falling away.

Relax. Close your eyes and sleeeeeep…”

We would do well to remember

That gravity on gravy

Never bodes well.

That shit really does stick

When it hits the bricks.

So, here we are again,

Stooping to conclusions,

Jumping at Jacks.

Eyes wired shut, we are fixated

Set now upon this, the thrice-encrypted path.

We are a witness to all that boils over:

To the untenable state of natural selection,

To the ethical quandary of genetic engineering,

To the denial of verifiable facts,

To the rejected principals of mathematics and science.

And to Adam's legacy, for crying out loud!

Forever tempted by a piece of fruit,

A victim of sex and the serpent,

An unwilling slave to the tenants of

Roe vs Wade and its

Cumbersome and unnecessary rules and regulations;

Words later to be carved in stone,

Except for the exceptions.

Despite this,

Despite this, and other such artery hardening vitriol,

It is in our mindset to continue doing what we do,

Saying what we say,

Thinking what we think.

Change is always the first

And the last thing we want.

As we stand on the brink…

On any other day,

Another flashing dash of poli-sci discord

Gets interjected;

Paper-mint tea party wooden crates

Tumultuously tossed into a

Quick fix for the rich

Regulation-free, tax break sea.

See how they run

To their offshore bank accounts.

Baby’s out with the bathwater.

Purple mountain majesty

With injustice and imprisonment

For all:

Who perform badly,

Who don’t conform to one culture,

Who don’t fill out all of their forms in triplicate,

Who appear to be staggering under the weight of

Legislative oppression, state by state.

Anyway,

Social Security has always been a state of mind.

What were we thinking?

The Affordable Care act,

A communist plot.

The Department of Justice;

With weaponized intentions

And big city riots, the crime never stops.

Education and indoctrination, interchangeable.

Taliban intentions,

Cloaked in evangelical ideologies,

And internment camp thoughts.

Walls to keep us in or out?

Trouble is, it's a matter of whose side you're on.

One nation, indivisible, must maintain

A well-armed militia

Must boast a hefty war chest,

Big boobs and atomic bombs

Sexy tank-tops and AK-47's always on display.

Best to protect our 2nd Amendment assets.

And we do so love a good parade.

Any absolutely necessary armed,

Nuke button at the ready, conflict

Deserves an America First

Rock ‘em sock ‘em, knee-jerk reaction,

Wouldn't you say?

Eventually, someone’s going to have to pay the piper.

That’s just the way …

Unintended consequences

Be damned,

Only to be lost, then found

Next Tuesday,

Next Wednesday,

Next Thursday,

A bomb in someone's carry-on luggage.

Another judge, politician or election worker gunned down.

Can we be saved by one honest vote?

Will we take the time to think about what comes next,

To do what it takes to clean up this mess?

Balance, it is said,

Requires consciousness

And

Consciousness, it is said,

Requires

Taking that next big step…

Michael True

1/1/2018 last edit 10/21/2024