THESE TIMES

These Times

What are we doing, what are we doing?
You know what Yeats said, the best lack all conviction 
while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

It’s Act V, the angry king’s descent into madness.
We will all pay a price for Trump’s nihilism
says this morning’s lead editorial.

Other mornings the talking heads feel our Prez
has cannily manipulated us all, but only the Old Boys 
think he can do the same with world leaders.

Like the leader of North Korea who’s at it again— 
yesterday’s 8,000 mile missile launch proves that 
soon enough they could land one on us.

Meanwhile, the talents of the tiller man over at State 
are all about big oil deals with the “Strong Men”
of carved-out countries. Diplomacy?   Gone.

Best and brightest given their walking papers. 
Empty offices. No ambassadors. Keening ghosts. 
Voices. Syrian refugees. Suffering. Human rights...

Is it good news that another TV newsman
was fired this morning? Sexual harassment 
cases coming to light every day. Almost a year

since the Women’s March, a reckoning? 
A fair working world so far away for so long 
for most women. And, let it be said, for most men.

Oh, my people, right now the tax bill those Old 
White Men are trying to pass will steal from the poor, 
pay off the Kleptocrats, and bankrupt our babies.

Blah, blah, blah. Is that 
what you think this is? 


                                                        —Sef, 11/29/2017