IN CASE YOU HADN'T NOTICED...

...we have an election coming up.  I can't think of better commentary than the poem below, once again by Marthe G. Walsh.  I guess I should name Marthe poet laureate of Wounded Bird...or something. 

                                                 Imitations of Morality

The scratch of gust blown leaves, stubborn yellows, brown

the last of reds rusted on their way to mud

            just beyond the pavement’s crown

               of civility, the thud

of campaign weary feet tracking voters down

in last gasp desperation of fanatic

            assertions of perfection

               possible in election,

    ignore the gush of faulty candidates erratic.

The patch of virtue tended, meant for harvest

by the flame of ultra-conservative torch

            is but withered interest

               in protecting those who scorch

the very fabric of the soul to invest

with new authority a male government

            not just hostile to women,

               dismissive of each human

   without a suit of cash to cover raw resentment

of all “those people” living their own way,

without permission, without the “guidance”,

            rule of oppressive patriarchs sway,

               smug and proud of their own ignorance

that in secret makes them nervous of prey

turning to stare down the profit stalker,

            challenge the right of a small elite

               to take, to hoard, to gorge on red meat

   while masses starve at the table of the slick talker.

The long, slow fall of a losing argument

turns to an early, ancient, mean, strategy

            of claiming to know God’s intent,

               noblesse oblige theology

that strips away a woman’s right to consent,

to control her own body, the intimate

            used to intimidate, shame, unhinge,

               the tactic of unholy fringe

   threshing force from rape to see sacred seed proximate.

The thatch of suspect false ideology leaks

and rots in the rain of words worth remembering:

            Truth from clouds of glory peeks,

             trails the liar dissembling,

clings like the stench of death while greed prevails and speaks

as if justice were the exclusive property

            of any self-proclaimed elect.

               Truth shines, the timid to protect,

   through fog of moneyed might to reveal equality,

       not some fleeting, fashionable stance or politic,

       just neighbor loving neighbor without fright dogmatic.