Monday, December 4, 2017

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/

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