From Out of the Inbox


I delete the forty-two solicitations for campaign donations 
from the little people  
to combat the rivers of invisible money spewed  
by the other side's billionaires 
Our billionaires apparently are not so fluent 

We are 'the little people'
I see us hurrying off to work
carrying our battered briefcases, umbrellas exploding in
the storms of autumn, freezing our tushes 
on the frozen sidewalks in the winter of the century, 
scampering beneath the heavy boots  
and skyscraper legs of the corporate storm-troopers 

Why can we fight money only with more of the same?
Why can't we donate paper flowers, 
old Valentines with crayoned kisses, children's report cards with 
the A's circled, clever bowls of kale salad
the smiles of knee-high nieces coaxed by frequent application 
of sugary liquids, 
pencil-worn scorecards with the names of diamond idols 
seen now only in the studio wrap-up 
lamenting that hanging slider in the top of the seventh?

Why does the permanent political class 
expect to get paid when the only interest
served by marathon campaign carnivals 
that crowd the air with Ferris wheels of denigration 
and roller-coasters of paid duplicity 
is their own? 

I walk in a garden of video promises
digital invitations with sticky fingers
breath-taking ascents to rhetorical prospects where the air is thin
transitory surveys, singular snapshots of 
a moving stream of media eventualities 

in which we float, we little people,
on folded paper boats carrying our little piles 
of GW's portrait, we pioneers of vox populi percuniae
praying for pennies from heaven 
when the rainbow coalition is enuf 





Sacred Cows


American shibboleths 
the arthritic sclerotic idolized Constitution, the all too semi-sovereign states, the electoral college, 
doddering fools squatting on an ancient panel of archons supreme:
Rule by anachronism

Oh no, what would our founding fathers say
( no 'mothers,' notice, 
doesn't that tell you something?) 
It's like believing in the literality of Genesis 
In the beginning the documentarians created the heavens 
and the Second Amendment, and the take-two (and call me in the morning)
Romanesque Senate 
And the three-fifths rule to protect the peculiar institution
And what would the founders say about their original intent 
to permit no abridgment of our natural right to buy a cruise missile 
at a gun show to better impress our enemies at the high school?

Who dares scorn the special madness of aMErica?
"The pure products of America go crazy," wrote William Carlos Williams
who worried about "imaginations which have no/
peasant traditions to give them/
character"
It's American traditions that worry me: 
Shoot first and ask questions later
Though you fear the man with the black face
Remember, your badge or merely your whiteness (or your gun) is a license to kill 

Who refuses to pledge allegiance to 
our immaculate conception by Constitution 
a document frankly framed in fearful compromise
when hardly anyone could vote, 
'persons' were totaled at a discount for reasons of census
but had no rights, not even to life 
loaded muskets were stacked by the door in fear
of Indian raids or slave revolts  
California was regulated by mission bells 
Texans were under the impression they were Mexicans 
and the conquest of Canada was just a matter of time?

I say level the anachronistic states, flatten the field, 
play Risk with democracy, 
let the computers do the math: one person, one vote across the board, 
the majority empowered to form conclusions, make laws, 
and depose the old Uncle Moneybags on the corporate bench 
in favor of a posse of wise women, an Alaskan shaman, 
and the personal appointee of the Dalai Lama 





Election Season 


Jesus announces
the perfect candidate
no past, no digital footprint, no peccadilloes on record
a few snide comments on the rich,
but they'll get over it

His cabinet is not of this world 
His program does more with less
gathering the crumbs, applying funny math
to balance the food budget,
fuzzy logic to save one baddie, 
let the citizens beyond reproach fend for themselves 
(or cast the first stone)
His paradoxical predictions
always sound good, 
though nobody understands what he's saying
That's good too because (his handlers tell us)  
don't criticize what you can't understand 

His ratings ascend, 
supporters flock to his appearances, 
dropping their tools to
climb to the rally on the mount,
seeking love in all the high places 
They give whatever they can't hide overseas to the poor
and follow him
He speaks of hope, of mysteries, of paradox
of lovable neighbors
His disciples march on the capital
The people, they chant, want the fall of the regime

But the regime is a criminal empire
with a knack for skewering rebels
The oligarchs have more money than sense
They work the back channels, intrigue for no reason,
draw scandals in the air
False witnesses are recruited to demand his retraction 
The perfect candidate is humiliated, scapegoated,
They pile rumors upon him,
bear him down with microphones
Even then we love him
The chains are our own, but he wears them so well

Banished, to a better place,
We can't see him any more
But we know he's there 
It's a miracle, but also a deal
He gets his reputation back, but stays out of politics

A millennium goes by, and then a second 
New money comes to the neighborhood
They fix up Harlem, gentrify the flooded wards 
of the city beneath the sea,
The wheel turns, the bubble rises,
deflates, come up some ways again,
like the mercury in spring

After many years the wanderer from the wilderness, 
a simple man, perhaps a fool, 
revisits the capital, registers the fresh paint 
and the spruced-up storefronts 
Among the poor he can discern no change