Poem Of The Week: 05/31/2005

	Reflections on History Study as Karen Hughes gives a Talk on Leadership

	"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and 
	over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda. (applause)"
		-from the transcript of George W. Bush in Greece, NY on May 24, 2005

"Tell a lie a thousand times, and it becomes the truth,"
said Ms. Hughes.
Which seemed odd.
So, when the corporation pep session let out,
I stayed
to see
if it was a tongue slip or
hearing glitch, to see
if she'd play it again
for the next group in.

I, pretending to look busy or
thoughtful in my blue plastic seat
while palm pilots, cel phones, and blackberries chirp to life,
one tide out to happy hour,
another wave in
to stackable chairs.

And you have to admire political advisors
who quote Nazi propaganda ministers,
don't you?
Maybe

not.
And maybe
Goebbels loved freedom,
maybe saw democracy
as the shining city on a hill,
maybe "gulag" is the wrong word,
maybe

every class I took in Catholic prep school
really didn't add up to much.
Except, maybe, Calculus; except, maybe,
Chemistry, Physics, and Music.

It's a few words, really,
several syllables, a couple dozen sounds
licked and stuck end to end,

she probably didn't mean
to paraphrase like that;
but, in the second go-through

it makes me laugh
how I used to have terrors
going to my own home's
basement by myself, used to fear
the dark shore beneath my own bed:

how you can be made to fear the dullest, empty nothing
and to cheer the point where any spotlight ends.

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