last state of the union...

the applause rang through Capitol Hill,
not as much as throughout the country, the small towns, the inner cities,
the deserts far away...
it is his last words,
and we know that's what's best for this country...
he looks worn out...
I hope so...
I hope every night he goes to sleep he sees the faces of all those thousands who have died in the name of oil.
A word that has been misconstrued as freedom.
Al-Qaeda wasn't a dominant force in Iraq.
Saddam didn't make the twin towers fall,
nor all the people who departed that day in September.
He makes jokes.
The rich laugh.
The poor and those who lost do not.
Their resolve is in his departure.

He stumbles as he tries to say "veto."
He is going to cut $18 billion in programs,
but these programs are not mentioned.
Who will they affect?
Yes...
You...

A standing ovation
again from the rich on Capitol Hill...
and another,
and another,
and...another.

He's said much, but as always,
nothing.
In the desert soldiers cry,
for those they lost.
In Washington,
politicians clap, and clap, and clap,
because they never been in the desert.
They've never watched their brothers and sisters,
sons and daughters,
die.

Stop clapping you bastards.
You sheep,
you overprivileged lackeys.
The devil will leave the building.
It's up to us not to put another one in,
but unfortunately,
with an electoral college,
and interest gropus,
and campaign donations from highly funded corporations,
the choice we had, the choice we bled for,
was lost long ago...

He speaks of democracy.
A term he never knew in his two terms.
Government in which the supreme power is retained by the people and exercised either directly.
We gave that away long ago...
We are a republic.
A state in which the sovereign power resides in a certain body of the people and is exercised by representativesb elected by, and responsible to them.
Them...
they are the corporations...
they are the industry...
they are no longer us.

beer on the porch

the beer was on my porch when I came home from work.
Staring blankly at me as it leaned against the door.
She was gone as I had expected.
Her Saturday was on Monday
and I knew the party that never ends
had found her.
I decided to do what I do when I feel down
as my daughter penned it
"to pick up heavy things and put them back down again."
The gym
A church of mine for many years now.
A place to try and align my body with
my failing mind and spirit.
I walked into church, said my prayers,
and blew out my lower back almost instantly.
I felt the tendons and muscles fail
and I limped away quietly
to not show my weakness.
I drew a scalding bath and sat in it long enough to where the pain numbed everything
reading an old friend
sipping a beer, smoking a cigar
until I couldn't stand the heat any longer.
I found my couch
more beer, more smoke
empty, alone, and now broken
more now than I had been when I found the beer on the porch.
I wanted what I couldn't have.
I knew it wasn't what I wanted.
And I'd added a new pain on top of the old.
I smiled.
As I limped across the cabana to the refrigerator for a fresh, new bottle,
the stinging in my back never let me think of her.