A phrase I never liked

Our elites in the open model the old colonial horse race
where the object was always to knock off the opponent
to leave him behind in the muck on the way to the finish
line so free and clear and rip roaring away from them all

They imperial attempt to close off all lanes to nomination
to leave us only the same old rancid two party lesser evil-
ism with both candidates mentioned already so obvious
sock puppets of professional master class manipulation(s)

Mere knee jerks and constant grimace tics of sociopathy
which are the main skill set requirement to preside over
demolition derby of public health disaster and total crisis
of pandemic of endlessly lost ‘war on terror’ forever wars

As they back up nuclear armed super stupor duper powers
into all those geo-political corners and wheeling & dealing
with their still ever more fossil-fueled militarized system
of ongoing plastic straw in craw of environmental destruct

That comes at us viral, digital, fungal biological revolution
ready or not bacteria galore flying circus circling the globe
why the candidates couldn’t be superficially more different
while at the core they’re galloping away so fast to leave us

So far behind, beyond the apocalypse of mud lost for good
& way in arrears on rent and everything else that really does
matter when what can’t be paid won’t these two horror story
men who wouldn’t know any real compassion if it bit them.

 

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.