Elections have consequences and confetti on one side, not the other

"Republicans will be able to drill for oil in my bedroom if they want. Who'll stop them—me? Marcel Marceau? Buddha? That guy's too chubby and fictitious."

^{The Problem We All Live With (1964) by Norman Rockwell}

Dear Friends,

Every week there’s more of you I am writing to you and every week I am grateful for that. Of course, the truth is, I’d send this newsletter out even if it was just to myself. “The poets are mad,” Bob writes in the poem I’m sharing today. He uses “mad” in a slightly different context, but I think both fit, and I’m sure he meant to evoke the ambiguity of meaning.

I hope you will be as moved by this piece as I am each time I revisit it.

May we remain as calm and cool as rainfall at the tail-end of winter,

Karan

Elections have consequences

     and confetti on one side, not the other

by Bob Hicok

Suddenly I'm surrounded by republicans.
The president. Congress. The senate.
Three quarters of the governors
and state legislatures are red.
I kissed my wife last night
and she tasted like Richard Nixon.
The country's more republican
than I am Bob. I'm all Bob
in one sense, but in another,
I'm half Virginia and half Hershel,
so the math checks out. So what becomes
of checks and balances now?
Imagine asking yourself,
Do you think my ideas are brilliant
or merely inspired?
Republicans will be able to drill
for oil in my bedroom if they want.
Who'll stop them—me? Marcel Marceau?
Buddha? That guy's too chubby
and fictitious. But now they've done it—

the poets are mad. This means
the painters are furious
at having to listen to the poets.
Soon people who sell art supplies
will be livid that the painters
spend so much time hiding from the poets
and not painting color field portraits
of nudes. But how do you paint
a color field portrait of a nude?
O look—I just got distracted
by my own poem. I begin to understand
why liberals are out of power.
Republicans don't wonder
how to paint color field portraits
of nudes. They recognize
a trick question when they are one.
They see the chance to tell women
what to do with their babies
and take it. They know it's finally time
to give the long-suffering rich
the hand-job of a tax break. But what

am I really saying?
I guess that I'm at a loss
for a rudder, as it requires
first and foremost a boat,
and I am what technically
is referred to as drowning. Or this
isn't over by any means necessary
measures will be taken as a whole
the center will not hold me closer
tiny dancer in the dark-
ness falls on those who don't
check their flashlight batteries
first, everyone check
your flashlight batteries first
and then repeat after me—
America is the greatest
and messiest country
because whoever wants to be
one of us gets to be
on the team. Did I just say
suck your left-leaning thumb
one more week and then
get back to work? No,
I did not. Two days, tops.

This poem originally appears in the diode poetry journal.