Hard on the Poor
Our moral compass
Goes south
Skewering
Those below
Under lyin’
Poverty abashed
Without abjections
Needle US
Too say
Pricks
Hand shakers
And grand standers
Razing just for fund
He’ll freeze over
Before changing any position
Undertaking another bleak poll
Never about-facing mistakes
Fueled by deft ears
As the eaves drop on the homeless
Given props by spooks
Out of focus groups
Like miss diagnosing
The mortified
A rhino virus
In the middle of the living
Room for a growing boy
Like a Pinocchio knows
Running up bills
Virulent peckers
A fecund plague
Deifying gravitas
With hearts sow cold
Bringing them to their sneeze
A wretched climax
Eyes watering
When seize it
Progress
And congress
Members stiff
The public
Relations privatizing
A press corpse
Unable to issue a retraction
Interminable hacks
That even in their coffin
They are still
Convinced that they are
Looking up
Mean wile
Enjoin bye
The least of these
Has been
All ready
Spinning
In their gravy
Known as
Underground resistance
Ever more
Digging their new haunts
Offering no quarter
Giving berth
To just deserts
Best served
Cold
As south is south
And north is north
Encompassing awe
Probity
This poem offers a bevy of mixed metaphors and social commentary. I wrote this poem before the latest Republican government shutdown, but its themes are eternal in politics. The rich get richer and the poor get the shaft. Republicans moralize to others and then epitomize sleaziness themselves. Politics is governed more by money than the needs of the people. Proselytizing politicians paint themselves into a corner driving their internal contradictions into explosive stupidity matched only by their intransigence.
Still, reality gives feedback. Karma wends its way into the path of even the morally blind. With wisdom, the subtle nuances of life’s ways can be discerned from a distance, and it’s gentle signs guide us in harmony. With increasing foolishness, a dulled capacity to read wisdom’s kindly signs, ever-increasingly blunt warnings of impending danger will be offered. If we insist on continuing down ever-increasingly perilous paths, mere red flags will turn to violence — sometimes physical violence, sometimes emotional violence, sometimes political violence. Violence is the province of fools, whose understanding ends at blunt instruments. May we keep our eye on wisdom’s gentle signs guiding us to harmony amidst giant oafs clumsily swinging their blunt instruments.
