[Newspoetry] election anxiety

[Joe Futrelle]

Every browser is open to
CNN, CBS, ABC, the NYT
.com
I read the polls like entrails
hit reload, as if the polls were averaged
minute-by-minute

I check daily to see
if Illinois is still
a "battleground" state

I keep my Nader yard sign
under constant surveillance
against imagined thieves

I daydream absurdly that Grace,
that friendly next-door-neighbor
with Gore signs in the front yard
who serves as an election judge
will bar me from voting
because of my expired
driver's license

what if some mishap
keeps me from the polls?
I'd better be there
the moment they open

Sure I'm scared by
Democrats' supreme-court
scare tactics

But I'm also scared by
Gore's insane military budget,
the spectre of 
civilians killed by "peace-keeping"
cluster bombs and showered
with depleted uranium
he invokes

Colombia, I will not
vote for the war like
other progessives more
spooked than I
5% will stand together but
this is all the help
our political system
can offer you this year

It makes me nervous
that of all the campaign ads
I've seen, my favorite was
Buchanan's scene of an auction
where candidates were sold
to caricatures of special interests

Do I have to add him
to Nader and McCain,
my sort of Justice League
of American Politics?

Where's politics' truth.com
to show us the bodybags
in Kosovo, Iraq, Colombia,
our inner cities,
lethal injection chambers,
that we voted for?

--
Joe Futrelle
Editor-within-chief,
Newspoetry dot com