Gone are the days where a great nation reigned, Ever proud in an earned reputation of strength. Our neighbors now mock us, our folly, our choices, Regard us impetuous in many things great. Gone is the time when our Statesmen took risks, Emerging victorious in unpopular aid. We now live by polling, by ten-second sound bites, Believing in nothing, and caring for less. Unless and until we can muzzle Big Business' Stranglehold on our lawmakers' pens Higher and higher social deficit rumbles, Insuring class struggle, unpopular ends. Somewhere among us walk tomorrow's great leaders, Knowledge and Wisdom and Patience their creed. It still may take decades to erase all the foolishness, Large looming debt as a government's greed. Laws have been toppled to serve only lawyers Inciting rebellion from thousands who see Nothing or little now standing between them, as Giant world monsters congeal in the streets. A massive recounting of wounded world's stories Make many uncomfortable, even afraid: Enraged story tellers don't always agree, Raw in their poetry, rough in their rage. Insurgencies beckon as urgencies reckon a call: Collecting the people, electing the steeple to fall. All is well when the race is run; though war is hell, the battle won...
-- Copyright (c) 2001 by Jerral Sapienza - Jerral -at- LLX.COM -- You may reprint or distribute it provided entire copyright notice is included with the poem. Published by Lifelong Learning Excellence, Inc. (LLX.COM) For permissions: PO Box 3462 • Hillsboro, OR • 97123 • USA • (541) 343-1202 or write to Whispers -at- LLX.COM -----------------------------------------------------------------------------I got pretty fed up with what has passed for Political Vision by our politicians in the Bush Administration. Damning of the Kyoto Treaty, an ignorance of foreign affairs and relationship, Big Business trysts behind the scenes, total lack of accountability to the electorate, self-important disinterest in everything except the "Me! Me! Me!" version of political leadership which makes me SICK! Thus, I had to make a bit of a Social Commentary of my own: Calling all patriots to take back the country. Topple the steeple of arrogance the politicians worship, built by Big Business' stranglehold on them. -Jerral 8.6.2001
Then, under the circumstances of the collapse of the World Trade Towers only a bit more than a month later, I decided to de-emphasize this poem and remove a pointer to it from my poetry web site because it seemed a little harsh on our Commander in Chief in times of political uncertainty and inappropriate at the time in the face of that literal toppling of some Big Business in that way. I was thinking more metaphorically like as in getting people to the polls in 2002 and with a strong vote, topple the self-impressed steeple of political ideology and throwing the Big Business worshippers out on their ear! Go, Campaign Finance Reform, John McCain et al! 9.12.2001 -js
But then back to Bushness and Business as Usual I see, in Aug '02. Big Business Ethics (or lack thereof) are emerging again in the news and reminding us how politics works in the US. So I'll reinstate this. -- Aug 02