Flimflam and Uncle Sam
By Neil Ellman
Don’t try me, no condescension. please,
no more, it’s over, kaput.
there is no certainty in this life:
neither truth nor validity:
the blue jay isn’t blue
except for a certain trick of light
nor is the earth as seen from space
a shade of verdant green
but bluer than a turquoise ring
and Pluto just a piece of rock.
I’ve had it with so-called miracles:
a granite statue bleeding from its eyes
the face of the Savior in a piece of toast
or the billionth birth of a child
as a miracle, of miracles, its parents say,
while it happens every day.
I huddled in my bombproof shelter
when the Russians were coming
prepared for my computer to crash on Y2K
ate only figs to fight hoof-and-mouth disease
and waited for the Messiah’s arrival
in April, then May, then June
and every month and year since then.
I’ve learned that full employment means
thirty million people out of work
that the One Percent runs everything
except the movements of my bowels
that a tweet is bigger than a thought
and a thought is nowhere to be found
in any politician’s head.
I’ve had it, I quit, I’ll go to my cave
or even my grave
one of many who have been fooled
bamboozled, flimflammed
and deceived by the powers that be
but never, never again.
……………………………
Neil Ellman is a poet from New Jersey. He has published numerous poems in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. He has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net.
Viewing recommendation: Network, starring Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch and Robert Duvall; screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote, “Television is democracy at its ugliest”; and directed by Sidney Lumet, 1976.