Dukakis

      "The placid green tank rambles against my cause,
      trembles my squelched skull in its combat hardhat
      squinting out the cool black fish-eyes in the crowd
      of press-men. I won't smile for applause.
5     How many times has the future groaned and ceased
      beneath my feet? That ice lightning stalled me blind
      but unlike Oedipus I remained unchanged, chained
      to my loving Kitty and her scrambled passel of cubs.
      Bush and Willie Horton register like stars, crooked
10    like unforgiving hooks into the milky heart
      of my campaign-cosmos. When Willie went killing
      on his blood-spritzed spree, funded by the Furlough's goals
      of rehabilitation for the apolitical psychopath,
      Mr. Ailes had me sighted in his hateful geiger
15    fat on his media-consultancy and pool shark style
      of cynically 'manipulating the Mass...'
      I feel the edges zero-in and narrow at my throat....
      I was like a tree when I was green, like Alexander
      at his dashing bastard best, played by Steve McQueen.
20    Now hot on the overheated tank churning at my hips,
      the minotaur of my class with an eagle's face, I feel
      the cold motion rifle through me. What is left to say?
      I love my wife even when she's high."

 

From the collection "Contemporaries"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.