The Election — A Poem

Dear Marshall I never knew you

but your cliche burns a brand in my frail brain

the one about the media and the message yeah

that one

It makes things double strange

So I am washed in images and

hardly clean

Because the images are dirty and opaque

and I now turn them off for fear of being assaulted

by some dire warning of symptoms that most surely lead

to death

I searched for GOOD today and learned there are

so many goods out there that you would think

life is improving leap and bound

I need another way to do relationships

This fleetingness does blunders for my trust

and what of all my children real and

less so

Oh yes I meant to talk of the election

I have no opinion

except one

Whenever I hear strident certainty I barf into

a bag that goes from here to China

I voted Dick Gregory once

How did that work out?

I think it was 08 that did me in

But then things got better than expected

except for those for whom things got worse

I am willing to gamble

because what else can I do

Votes count but

not as much as their effects

The only candidate I really wanted was actually just

the wife of a candidate

the Judges had no patience for

though win he did

Theresa was her name still is

I figure she knows what is what

That’s how unequipped I am

to make up my own mind

and why I would be perfectly happy to wear

a blindfold to the polls this year