[lit-ideas] newly discovered Auden poem?
- From: Eric Yost <NYCEric@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 03:46:36 -0500
Hit the Voting Booth, Okay?
by W. H. A.
Hit the voting booth, okay?
Pretend to cast your vote;
Time and deadlines turn away
Individual voters from
Crucial ballots, and recounts
Prove the choice ephemeral:
But if you must stay to eight o'clock
Don't let present leaders lie,
Mortal, guilty, and in truth
The same old politicians.
Time and fatigue have clear bounds:
To voters as they wait upon
The challenging lawyer's test
In their ordinary clothes,
Weak the vision voters have
Of Democrats' sympathy,
Republicans' love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the pollsters and the clocks
The TV spin-doctor's ecstasy.
Promises, fidelity
On the close of polling pass
Like pork barrels in a Bill,
And fashionable pundits raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every megabuck of the cost,
All the campaign pros foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a precinct, not a vote,
Not a count nor chad be lost.
Ballots, insight, fervor dies:
Let the TV returns that glow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of clarity show
Eye and knocking wood may guess.
Find the elected guy okay;
Noons of stalemate see you fed
By the newly-elected powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by satellites above.
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