March 17: Tony Hoagland, "Cause of Death: Fox News," Political Poetry

Cause of Death:  Fox News

by:  Tony Hoagland

Towards the end he sat on the back porch,
sweeping his binoculars back and forth
over the dry scrub-brush and arroyos,

certain he saw Mexicans
moving through the creosote and sage
while the TV commentators in the living room

turned up loud enough
for a deaf person to hear
kept pouring gasoline on his anxiety and rage.

In the end he preferred to think about illegal aliens,
about welfare moms and health care socialists
than the uncomfortable sensation of the disease

sneaking through his tunnels in the night,
crossing the river between his liver and his spleen.
It was just his typical bad luck

to be born in the historical period
that would eventually be known
as the twilight of the white male dinosaur,

feeling weaker and more swollen every day
with the earth gradually looking more like hell
and a strange smell rising from the kitchen sink.

In the background those big male voices
went on and on, turning the old crank
about hard work and god, waving the flag

and whipping the dread into a froth.
Then one day the old man had finally finished
his surveillance, or it finished him,

and the cable TV guy
showed up at the house apologetically,
to take back the company equipment:

the black, complicated box with the dangling cord
and the gray rectangular remote control,
like a little coffin.

____________________

You know, I don't write much political poetry.  It's so easy to lapse into anger and outrage when I think about the governmental landscape of the United States, especially these days.  Yes, in this blog, I sometimes can't help dipping my toe into the cesspool of Washington, D. C.  However, for the most part, I stick away from it.

I couldn't resist this poem, however.  It's so surprising and funny and sad, and it really reflects what's going on right now in the White House, in my opinion.  I think that the political establishment in America is threatened, and so it's hiding behind the great orange Godzilla in the Oval Office, letting him wreck Tokyo.

Don't worry.  I'm not going to start writing Trump haiku.  Won't be composing Paul Ryan rondels or Mike Pence pastorals.  That's not me.

But Saint Marty does appreciate a good poet who can.