Spinnin' Top {White House Temp} by Phyllis Jean Green

[Phyllis Jean Green]

  Spinnin' Top
        [White House Temp] .
 
Legs bandy, arms bent out of shape
like a shoot'm-up gunfighter's. Smirk
swaggers behind a sealed podium,
guards sloe-eyeing to each side
and behind. One by one, the hairs
on my neck stand.  Get spidey-neck
ever'  time.  Microphones, many
in the phallus vein, and cameras
tricked out with the latest zooms
and angles jut toward the raised
figure in custom political garb:  
blue suit, blood tie,  blinding shirt.
Wristwatch and 'links that cost
more than you and I make
in God knows how long.  Smirk
trolls for smiles, smiles quirk at
Smirk. Yet the mouth fixing to
ladle spinner-backed pudding
and applesauce seems ill at ease.
Word for word!  you can hear him
being told.  Do not extemporize!  
Puppet-danglers who lack drawls
haul 'em out.   Whatever ya dew,
stick t' th' scrip' !!  Smirk tries.   
He does.  Trouble is, shots wear
off.  Doubles, 'r not.   Syllables
turn into llysables,  read phrases
prat-fall like auditioning ac'rbats
took a li'l somethin t'chill out.
Feel sorry for me,  Smirk's slump
says.  I try so hard.   Look at
the thanks I get.  Body count up, can
I hep it?   Few sods cripple 'r croak
'cuz-a HMO's, is it my fault?  Wha'
wudn't 'ey born with cattle?   -Debt?
Debt?  Didn't I lower taxes 'cross
the bo'd?.  "Shut UP,  Smirk,"
damn-near hear.  "Jes read the freak-
in' scrip' !!"   I say thank God
he shows himself.  Who and "wha'"
lurks behin' the glaze, the rictus, the
                                            Smirk.


(c) Phyllis Jean Green, 2008

[Sage Sweetwater]

Political bullets firin'...aimed at the phallus vein...president's (that's with a litttle p...HMO doesn't but his prestigious insurance pays for his Viagra....grrrrr....but who pays for his stutterin' speech therapy??)...I like this poetic White House essay...front lines and our soldiers fight to the very bloody end...some 4,000 count dead...wrists blown off, but hea, as long as congress has theirs, those expensive cufflinks that fancy up this war, never mind the soldier who has stubs minus the wrists...political speech writers quill the words and the taxes go on and on and up and oil up pumping manhood through the phallus vein manipulating American's, the have's and the have nots...tongue tied and prez lied...using war and human fighting machines to build thick walls in congressional wallets, not made from Texas cattle leather, but from wolf hide skinned warm as the hunters drop 'em in aerial hunting...made from Japanese whale hide in another war all of its own...war on religion, war on animal rights...it has been said through a popular book that a god Jesus turned water into wine...wonder if that was rewritten...a god Jesus turned water into oil??????

Sage

[Author-Poet Aberjhani]

One of the great things about celebrating 3 years of creative endeavors at CTI is that there is so much great work here to rediscover and enjoy all over again :-)

Aberjhani