Drooling Politics

[breathtest]

Turn your teacher on
with great golden verse
and eagle speak
instead of learning about
the patriotic elementary duty of war
the only method of sanitisation

We speak others' lies
in a multi-tongue
of hypocrisy and blanketed discrepencies
covered, hidden in money
and natural disasters
These command alternative thought

Incapable middle-aged drop-out
Politician
Who uttered believable
rehearsed scripted lines
who have become known as
conman - woman - pathetic child

Seperate money and humankind
and watch the politician
crawl to whichever he loves the most
Or watch him drool over the shoulder of the wife he is
making love to
as he looks at the television screen
hungry with the possibilities

Nothing anymore matters
No amount of emotion can compete
No amount of flesh can seduce
No amount of love can prophesy doom
Only continue to exist
in languidity



I hope you will give me feedback on this poem. I value your comments.....

[blank|verse]

Loved the opening:


Turn your teacher on
with great golden verse
and eagle speak

Love the expression 'eagle speak', which I presume here means something like 'to speak with courage', rather than to flap your arms and go "SQWUAK!" like a nutter. And it's interesting how it could easily apply to, say, George Bush spouting neo-Conservative American Family Values (the bald eagle being a US national symbol of course) as well as someone speaking out against authority. It's a brilliantly evocative phrase and importantly, it works as it stands. It's a shame you didn't have more of this sort of language, or use the punchy rhythm of these lines again in the poem.


We speak others' lies
in a multi-tongue
of hypocrisy and blanketed discrepencies
covered, hidden in money
and natural disasters
These command alternative thought

This bit lost me - you seem to be attacking mainstream political opinion, but then say it's 'covered, hidden' by 'natural disasters'? (For trying to deny climate change? Surely that would expose lies, not cover them?) Then you say 'These command alternative thought', when I would assume you're talking about mainstream thought. Maybe the confusion is deliberate, but I think clarity would have worked more successfully here.


Incapable middle-aged drop-out
Politician
Who uttered believable
rehearsed scripted lines
who have become known as
conman - woman - pathetic child

Not sure what you're trying to say in the last line, but there seems to be a dangerous whiff of misogyny if you're attempting to express a 'sliding scale' of weakness, ie. man - conman - woman - pathetic child. Maybe I've got that wrong. And, of course, not all politicians are men.


No amount of love can prophesy doom

Does love 'prophesy doom' anyway?


Nothing anymore matters

Well, something clearly matters to you. Even if it's nothing.

Good to read a poem that's trying to 'say something' though; you can clearly hear the passion of what you're saying coming through the language, so I hope this doesn't come across as overly critical. And as it happens, I'm writing something similar at the moment, so I'll try and post it in the next few days, so you can pick holes in my work!

[PrinceMyshkin]

A lot of this came across as rant. I agreed with the sentiment but didn't find anything memorable in the way it was presented, though I did very much like these lines:


watch the politician
crawl to whichever he loves the most
Or watch him drool over the shoulder of the wife he is
making love to
as he looks at the television screen
hungry with the possibilities