day THREE HUNDRED and NINETEEN

THE POLITICAL CLIMATE HEATS UP

Angry white people fulminate, rail,

and rage across the American landscape,

sporting T-shirts and baseball caps

bearing inflammatory slogans

and product endorsements.

Waving rifles and shaking fists.

Frightened that they may have

been left out of something but

they don’t seem to know what it is.

So they attack those they think

have it and won’t part with any.

Meanwhile the men who do

have everything, the obscenely

rich men, the powerful men,

pull everyone else’s strings

pitting each against the other,

one ethnicity against another,

rural against urban,

zealots against atheists,

blue collar against white collar,

south against north,

the landlocked against the coasts,

high school dropouts against post-graduates -

everything except the one truth

among them all: rich against poor.

Bloated billionaires buy and sell

politicians, paying them to bloviate

and spout obfuscating bafflegab

to distract attention from them

while they wallow in the endless

stream of money flowing their way

from government coffers and the

pockets and paychecks of the poor -

always plotting to acquire more.

And they laugh, confident that

they have missed nothing as they

relax on their luxury golf courses

sipping their gold-plated cocktails,

groping whomever they choose,

while mobs of angry white people

take to the streets to cheer them on.

--M.J. Arcangelini

M.J. Arcangelini, born 1952 in western Pennsylvania, has resided in northern California since 1979. He began writing poetry at 11. He has published in a lot of little magazines, online journals, & 9 anthologies. He is the author of two poetry collections: “With Fingers at the Tips of My Words” 2002, Beautiful Dreamer Press, and “Room Enough” 2016, NightBallet Press. He maintains an occasional blog of poetry and prose at https://joearky.wordpress.com/