Election Poems is a listening project. The poems you will read in this series document and respond to the politicized non-dialogue that seems to have invaded all forms of conversation these days, and the gas balloon of portent that’s escaping the seams. This is also a personal project. The content comes exclusively from my own listening experience, meaning conversations that people have had with me or things they have said in my presence, for better or worse, from the 2008 election cycle to the present. The results are not always easy to digest, and many of the poems deal with painful, disturbing, or incendiary ideas that have not gone away, as our current election season so aptly reminds us. But to be clear, the project is not about politicians, pundits, or campaigns, or the rhetorical moves they make in order to earn a vote, or tell the story of a given election. It is about everyone who is not running for office, and who/how we are to each other in an era where politics infuses everything.
For more information about this series and its concept, check out the introductory post. Previous poems can also be found on the series page. A new installment and image will appear every Tuesday through November 2016 (one week post-election), featuring poems from throughout the project, as well as a new one written specifically for the current week. The poems are titled by number, but will not appear in order.
16
Cozy with my enemies
Gobbling up our green and brown lands
Laws passed in the darkness of night
Teaching my child what I find repugnant
Lawlessness, lawlessness, lawlessness
I will use my voice while I have it
I will act against the tyranny I’ve tasted
I wish us the best of the bad dictators
But we are fated to them either way
38
Help your own damn self
It’s about who gets better, not who gets sick
Success is what we’re after
A cure not a comfort
If we can see you, it means we’ve failed
Our strength, our correctness
Is dependent on your absence
You need taking care of
Even if that means extra effort
Whatever it takes for you to disappear
Is what needs doing
74
A waveform that lays perfectly flat until someone’s tuning up
