“We are caught in the devil’s bargain.” – J. Mitchell
Woodstock
Those on the left gather manure
And the right mounds up scat.
Those who serve as the chorus
Pile more on top of that.
We take it all in in noisy swallows,
Take in every morsel they serve.
Turn the wheel as far as it allows
and the ship of state will barely swerve.
If Adam hadn’t taken the fruit
they wouldn’t be blaming Eve.
And we wouldn’t have all these
awful, fucking political poems!
Ha ha ha. That ending. 🙂
Seriously, this is fantastic. I love the rhythm.
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Thank you!
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Hahaha! Love the last line especially.
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Thank you!
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Nice. 🙂
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Thank you, sir! I’m quite proud of the Adam and Eve thing…. 🙂
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Yes! You managed to protest and be weary of the protesting at the same time.
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It helps to have multiple poetic voices. We are a lot of fun at literary gatherings!
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I just turned down an opportunity to compose and read for a Writers Resist rally. Just. Can’t. Do. It. Anymore. So glad someone else feels the same way.
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For me, it’s not a matter of party affiliation or anything else — none of our choices have enthused me… for a long, long time — but now it’s just that politics creep into everything. I want my poetry… and my reading of poetry to be alligned with art. Most of what I end up seeing is political protest, pamphleteering, and bombast. Reading others’ attempts at being humorous, or just plain mean-spirited, wears on me. Let’s move on is what I want to scream. …of course I’m not a screamer… really. 🙂
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I’m glad that you wrote this. Nice ending. 🙂
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Thank you! Everyone has focused on the end piece. I keep waiting for someone to respond to the next-to-last stanza. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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I’ll tackle it! There is theology in that stanza. Most people, theologians included, assume that sin entered through Eve, thus we blame her, but a closer look at the text from Genesis shows us that is not the case. The agreement about the fruit on that tree was with Adam (pre-Eve) and when SHE ate, nothing happened, beyond Adam standing there silent. The opening of eyes came when he took and ate. Were it not for that moment, we wouldn’t have bipartisanism and strife and the whole ‘blame’ issue would be as mute as our boy was in the story. It is, ultimately, the key stanza of your entire poem, which, by the way, echoes how I feel. When something goes political in nature, I check out. Truth is, my grasp of logic would slice and dice the eaters of said scat, so I take Mom’s advice and say nothing at all.
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Home run! Out of the park! Yep… and if he hadn’t eaten the fruit… no politics. Wouldn’t that have been the Garden.
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The protest of your poem voice is fantastically written and you gave everything that we are all feeling at this very moment in our political state of joke.
Excellent writing my friend. 🙂
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