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North America Internal Combustion Engine Era Diorama Rant

In a smoky diorama, under glass
At the corner of the century,100 million were asked
To choose between a facile man, who presented himself cleverly
Hiding his real designs
And a complex man, presenting himself poorly
Hiding his hopes and dreams.

As I peered through the screen
They chose the latter in their numbers. But
High office was awarded to the one
Who played a better legal game.

I shook the glass in disbelief, put it aside
Waited for a while, and picked it up again.

Four years on, the facile man
Was widely understood, to believe
That the problems of his nation
And of its interests in the world
Could be solved by war
And by threats of war
Economic pressure on the poor
And a heavy gag of fear.

This time the masses chose him, by a narrow margin
Or so it appeared, depending on
Assessments of mysterious reports
Of polling station irregularities
From somewhere called Ohio.

The glass steamed up
Got really murky
At this point.

I called in our resident anthropologist.
She studied the little creatures
And the chaotic scene they made
And she kindly interpreted:

That appears to mean that 50 million creatures
Adults of the species
Who live complicated lives, seem smart enough to survive
In an unforgiving system, to educate their kids,
And get their families fed
Somehow and nonetheless,
Expect a facile man
Who serves the combustion machine
To bring solutions to their table, even after
His comprehensive exposure
As a creature deluded by grandeur
And a heart of malign intent.

It must be in the packaging, the machinery of fear
The smog that obscures these tiny figures
And keeps them apart from each other.

Then a faint voice spoke, barely audible
Amid the constant hum and babble
From the margin of the tableau

'Screw this. I'd rather discuss the environment
Or the legacy of Vietnam, the finer points
Of human rights
The poverty trap and the soul's escape
With his opponents any day
Over a glass of wine.

I guess it's just me, and the other 50 million.
Unfortunately
I have some fixed ideas
That I can't shake from my head
About how imperia should be run
And for whom.

How does it feel, Colin Powell?
You could have been the first real black President
An American Mandela, who knows what potential you were hiding inside?
Instead, you will go down in the history
As the one who lied about mythical weapons
To enable an illegal war.
We'll always remember your absurd props
Test tubes and grainy spy photographs.

How does it feel, Colin Powell?
And all the rest of you sacrificial fools?
How does it feel to be played
By a man so unremittingly shallow
That it's news whenever he reads a book!

Of course I'm part of the non-gas-guzzling
Internationalist, humanist, French-speaking
Liberal elite. I live in exile up here on the coast
Judging y'all. Bien sur, I think I'm smarter than you.
But it don't matter who I am, or who might be screaming this.
Your crimes will stand, and with them you will fall.

All your imperial Presidents, your Secretaries of State and Defence.
Lucky for you
That you chickened out of the Hague Tribunal.
We'd have witnesses up to testify. Iraqi mothers
Whose children were slain by your 'shock and awe'.
Chilean mothers, Guatemalan, Salvadorean, Nicaraguan mothers
Angolan, Mozambican, Vietnamese mothers, whose children
Were maimed by your proxies, your landmines and your bombs.

We wouldn't have hung you by the neck, as you did Saddam.
We'd have you listening to their testimony, day after day
Until all your victims had had their say, for all the years it would take
Unless you die of natural causes first
Their voices echoing in your dreams
And through the soil of your graves.

And how does it feel, American mothers,
Last but not least, your sons and your daughters
Dead in their bloody uniforms
Crippled and maimed
Traumatised by their violent dreams, for the sake of a man
And his murderous team, that force-fed you with lies?
Let him know how it feels to you. It's your right
And one thing that he can't take away.'

That's what we seemed to hear through the glass
Rabbiting on without end, it seemed
A faint and lonely voice
Or was it two, or several. Couldn't tell.

Well, my patience is not infinite.
Bored with all this parochial talk
I threw the little box aside
The glass screen cracked on the sharp edge
Of one of my many garbage cans
Scattering the millions of figurines, all across the floor.

Oh well. Just too bad.
Someone will have to sweep up again.
And I resumed
The construction of life in other times and worlds.

poem by Frank Bana
Added by Poetry Lover
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