ralph nader

"turned on"
apt for a punk rocker;
the guy was forty-five minutes late
so i was reading
about a punk rocker;

my mother,
gleaming,
forty years of hero worship which my dad
called a "cult of personality,"
and that sent me into echoes of
YES WE CAN

applause louder than apologies,
preceding the slow, methodic dismantling of
hope
and change
and i wondered how

my mother
was doing.

overcast, warmish and really windy had me grinning like a moron
but after torrents,
yes, torrents,
railing against the collapse of my fragile faith,
and i was thinking of how he was held up
by pillars made of credit cards and brand-new drugs,
(it was a dark and stormy night)
i said "this weather is stupid"

but then i couldn't see where i was going
(mr. obama, where are we going?)
and my umbrella
doing its best to cheer me up
flipped inside out like eight times and
i said "this umbrella is stupid"

and then i almost walked into the pond
and i started grinning like a moron.