Campaigning 2008

The truth as I see it.

painful patience pervades.

as political power-mongers 

spar for paltry political points,

assault with exhausted 

sag-armed punches.

mix mean measures

titillating truth and

dabs of ruthless, 

usually useless, 

to create campaign 

half-fact creatures

wresting wretched

misinformed allegiance 

from subculture groups.

 

our collective conscience

must by its nature

tend to middle ground.

a waving, tottering, 

media-tweaked

bell curve struck

by extreme notions

with resounding clangs

intending to move the center.

have little success 

as long as 

our three-headed government 

has balanced power

to retard and absorb extremes

... as the originators intended.

 

without opposition 

extremism rears 

it’s ugly head.

control is censored.

fiction becomes truth.

direction is subject to

random meanderings.

with arrogance, wealth, 

power hunger, greed, 

ambition, and showmanship

in common,

you’d think good buddies

could join hands as

they spar to be the puppet master,

the controller,

the decision maker,

to wrest resources from the wretched,

to appease the unappeasable

powerless masses of poor.

but knowing no loss,

the president’s impotent puppets

dangle, dance and

wiggle wily wooden heads

while the media mind driven drivel 

tows the overly adorned 

and underly adored 

blasted band wagon 

in a powerful perilous parade 

through a pitiful repeated pattern

toward a notable November.