[Newspoetry] Frosty the Poet (at Ryan's Office)

[Wendy Edwards]

4. For Once, Then, Something 

(To George Ryan)


OTHERS charge me with political hackdom   
Always making a deal, so never seeing   
Deeper down the machine than where the money   
Pays for tickets and smiling campaign pictures   
My myself in the front page paper, godlike    
Looking out from a massive autumn landslide.   
Once, when driving with paid-for drivers license,   
an unplanned accident led to my office,   
Through the papers, a few more deaths, a scandal,   
Prosecutors rebuke the old boys network.   
Some leaks came from upstate, and lo, a ripple   
Shook whatever it was worked there at bottom,   
Blurred it, blotted it out. Who sold those tickets?   
Truth? Some pressured wage slaves? For once, then, something.