A Poem to Cast Aspersions on Certain Political Aspirations

​That’s what I’d like to pen
a lively literate alliteration
of the current situation,
an artful arrangement of insults
carefully crafted curses
silky as Shakespearean sleeves and sharp
Barded barbs beaded between banter
laid like lane lines restriping our route
on the interstate to the unthinkable.

To protect my fellow citizens
I turn to traffic engineer tendering
flashing neon arrows and orange cones.
I litter the landscape with impact attenuators
and Do Not Enter spikes designed to puncture
all the hot air from the pompous windbag
hovering vulture-like over my country
delivering a daily deluge of blowhard barrage,
threatening to flatten us like road-kill
devour us like carrion.
 
All around the prophets intone
and we must atone, retreat, repent,
reverse our trajectory at warp speed
and flap furiously away from the furnace
like the proverbial bats out of hell.
Contrary to popular opinion,
ostriches do not bury their heads
in the sand, they dig instead
safe nests for their offspring.
And likewise, echolocation
does not simply serve to avoid obstacles
but penetrates our very bodies
with waves that vibrate the truth
not in our ears, but straight
through our jaws
 
We teeter on the liminal edge
of has been and yet to come
our ballast and balance
nothing more than a ballot
and a ballpoint pen
poised to close the chasm
the pen’s nib its spider thread
of thin black ink
becomes the tightrope
on which we will step
boldly, I hope, boldy I pray
into our future