It’s the 8 second video news byte
as the Newt (not as cute little newt,
salamanders with hand like paws
and peering eyes) but rather neut
(as in neutered that is sterilized)
this fat Teddy Bear of fuzzy frame
professor cum political hack and
political action fund organizing genius
from Cobb County, Georgia
Atlanta’s answer to D.C.’s
military industrial complex
the third largest district
in receiving federal funds
is up there like some paper boy
collecting his weekly payment
punching off his points
in his Contract on America
which is really nothing but
the Grand Old Party’s old wish list
from forever or at least the 1950’s
cutting the capital gains tax
and anything that might
conceivably stand in the way
of poor people dying in the streets
and as this is moaning, droning on
suddenly the camera is pulled inexorably,
inexplicably up the capitol steps and building
the backdrop behind the staged photo-op
all the way up to the capitol dome itself
where some true patriotic sons and/or daughters
have managed to convey a hand painted sign
that simply says it all
with the four letter word
of a huge sold sign
S-O-L-D

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.