The U.S. Congress, Observed

Have you been watching
these little legislative haters,
these law-mockers and logic-blockers
sent to the Hill (our Golgotha)
with cash stuffed up their pipes?

They've done no reading in history,
economics, philosophy, or science.
Their self-interest is artless, their
corruption as bald as a brass door knob.

It's a little like watching a person
with lousy reflexes drive a stock car
at Darlington or Daytona,
or some drunk college lad
pick a fight with a seasoned
body-guard. It can't end
well. Yes, of course,

after the wreckage, it will be we
who'll have to clean up
as best we can. Politics
now seems to have an endless
supply of punks, and
not the musical kind.


hans ostrom 2013