Poem Of The Week: 9/22/2004

	Delegates

Delegates go to conventions
serving as my representation.
Supposedly.  

I've never
actually seen anyone who dresses like me
when I catch the conventions on TV.

They're like Shriners.
I don't know what Shriners do,
or why.  But there they are in public, zipping their tiny cars,

fez tassels flying behind them.  Whatever they're doing, 
they're not pretending
to represent me.

Delegates probably sleep in purple suites, order the Pay-Per-View hotel movies
as they drink the most expensive scotch known to man,
all of which I suspect I'm somehow paying for.

Draped in satin bathrobes,
they probably stroll out
to pee on the proletariat from their balconies.

Hell if I know.
But I doubt they spend afternoons watching football.
Or eat Burger King for breakfast.

My dad could build a car from a crate full of parts.  
I changed my own oil once.
Actually, I watched a friend change my oil while I asked questions,

so there are countless things
I don't know anything
about.

Charlie Parker said,
If you haven't lived it, it won't come out of your horn.
And I'm writing a poem about delegates

as I sit on my futon wondering if we should wash our delegates
in cold or warm.  I smile at the window
where clouds hang from the window frames like torn drapes.

This sky 
could represent me.
I wish I could figure out how to vote for that.

On TV, the delegates all look like a Grateful Dead concert
somehow gone semi-formal.  It's all, woo hoo,
glass-eyed old men who still talk about the ‘88 Convention where Dan Quayle played Dark Star
 	without any shoes on, man!

That reminds me,
does anyone know what an Elector does?
I'm 36 years-old and there are delegates and electors out there

marching in delegations and electoral colleges which impact my life
and I don't know what they do.
But I wish it involved sandwiches.

Somewhere under balloons and confetti, the man who is supposed to represent me
is force-feeding himself cliches from all the patriotic speeches
as if brewing bathtub-foie gras and

though I vote every four years yet still don't know what a delegate does,
I do know that foie gras is pate made from a force-fed goose's corpulent liver.
And if the delegate representing me eats such a thing, I'd call him an asshole.

Asshole.
Wouldn't it be beautiful 
if we did things differently today, wouldn't it be

beautiful
if the day dawned blue 
and we washed our delegates in hot?
 

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