Still: Election
A poem
Setting: a small Presbyterian church somewhere outside of Keene, NH
Rhetoric: speeches demanding “a return to family,” press releases suggesting
“a newly compassionate colonialist,” someone mad as hell and not taking it,
someone taking it
Group: blackcoats/blackhats/pointy shoes, or wide lapels/white golf shoes/chromed
fish. “I do not know any Puritans though I know some lovely witches . . . ”
Constituency: spark plug workers, dental hygienists, idea of representative birds
(what’s best for us from up above). Or history, lolling masses, the alehouse crowd
liking typhoid et al., our 3rd District newly distributed, our “give them your
tired your poor”
Sponsor: due process, Papal Vow
Heroine: Reese Witherspoon, Carol Moseley Braun
Hero:
Telling Statistic: in 1960 40% of the electorate knew what a candidate was; in 2024
there were a sixth of the number of campaign-finance infractions, but only a third
of the elections
Theme Song: “Pennies From Heaven”
Cereal: millet (Monsanto), Total
Group: brownshirts, Khmer Rouge, yellow peril
Scenario: global readjustment of imminent threat, migrations of virtues (young
boys) to Cardinal Law, “this Pax Americana a bitter fruit,” this
documentation: (again) the Book, the hopes of distilling Right thru Fright
Typology: (John 4: 14) the political inclination of an oppressed people (born again!)
learning to oppress
Outcome: the same