Disclaimer: I don’t normally post poems here, because I feel that they have a much better chance at legitimacy if they live a long revision life and see the light of publication in a real venue, not my own blog… However, because of the nature of this poem and my slight intoxication, I have decided to request feedback over the internets, which are known for their fair and balanced opinions.
Written tonight, this draft is rant-y, and liberal. I post because I want feedback, but I’m not entirely sure about the politics…
**edit: if it seems cut-off, it is. This is the first third (about) of the poem**
See for yourself after the jump.
It is not as though I was entirely right:
On Points interview with poet Tracy K. Smith – Space and Poetry! I’m not wrong! 🙂 http://bit.ly/nVvZWB
Smith’s poems still read as if the flight of fantastic
power in the æther out amongst the stars
guides our world. Even this brilliant daughter
of an engineer knows to be read
is to live, and to live one must make
concessions to all those who call the radio
show about their faith in their
all-powerful-individual – even if it is not
the particular belief she holds.
Even if these particular evangelists with
nothing better to do on a glorious
afternoon are ego-stroked on their bellies
and bare backs, as though babes, just to quiet
their loudest brayings. This is the fallacy
the entire republican system has fallen
to: squeaky-wheel-syndrome. It must
be greased and stroked to quiet squees
of self-agrandized protest. The groans
against a system. It is always the system.
And yet a belief in the biggest system
of them all is superstitious, so why not
assign god-granted powers to politicians,
the return of the theocratic class: blessed
are those who are humble before media, for they
shall inherit the world; blessed are those
who cry for capital, for they shall live
enriched; blessed are those who convey
the talking-points, the bullet-points, the chapter-
verse-points, for they are infallible.