What passes, these days, for governance
Is a blood-gorged, body poli-tick,
That fat upon the unwilling host,
Swelling with what is needed most
By the most costs the most
The most in votes
So the most have prospects most remote.
Is it odd for our famed democracy
To stay in its way so diligently,
To find in its way the same way
That it is?
What it is?
(What is it?)
Had I learned in school of this contingency,
That power plus pressure equals irony.
If I had been granted that honesty,
(The problems of men are men, said Kennedy,
Who are shadows in the light of history
Who, when before the stark realities
Prefer their political fantasies,
Whose twisted phrase and clever ruse
Leave our realities un-amused.)
Surely, this sum of cleverness
Is equal to hardship and homelessness,
And just as surely as the talk is cheap
They’re cheap and cheap and cheap and cheap.
“This guy, Keynes? Who the hell is he?
Counter-cyclical spending? Seriously?
I say, it’s ’Un-American!’ It’s plain to see
That prosperity springs from austerity.
Just look at the Brits!
(What’s that? A double dip?)
Ummm, don’t look at the Brits-they’re full of shit.
We’re so much smarter than Keynes, you see,
Smarter than business or the proof of history
And you’d see that if only you’d look at me
Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me!”
The cost of crisis is faithlessness
In the general purpose of governance,
Exactly when action is needed most
By the most for the most, most courage is lost.
From reason springs action, from action, pride,
From reason only does this “recession” hide.
So, where upon the ether, the question is laid,
The ether will answer…
Will the question be swayed?
