[Newspoetry] 'Deadlock Above the Keys,' a curious document...

[Nick Montfort]

...found this evening by Scott, myself, and one of my poetry program
colleagues here. I am sure it will be of interest to you. On behalf of
this "Floridius," whomsoever he may be, I submit...


Deadlock Above the Keys

By Floridius


<i>
Mickey knows the call -
Down on Main Street, in the Sphere,
Walt has prophesied.
</i>


Hello?
                                 It's Al.
Al? I can barely hear - ah, 
it's okay, it's better now.
                                 I'm on the cell phone.
Ah, I've got one of those too.
Well, heydiho, Al. Tough night,
it's a - we've all been so
nervous, just reaming our
hands, you know.
                                 Ah, yeah. But, it looks like ...
                                 Congratulations, George.
Well you sure faught a tough 
one, Al, and - Laura would you 
shut the wind - thanks - 
sorry, Al, I swear there must be 
thirty thousand people out there 
cheering in my front lawn -
probably quieter in Nashville - 
you were sayin?
                                 Well, we did fight a battle, but as 
                                 they say it wasn't a war and I 
                                 respect the rule of the law and 
                                 the will of the American people. 
                                 Tipper and I have come to a 
                                 decision, after conferring with 
                                 more than thirty people who've 
                                 been traveling with us across 
                                 this great nation. Alber Whitney, 
                                 from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who 
                                 works on his family farm, and 
                                 Martha Crandall, from Baton 
                                 Rouge, Louisiana, who can't 
                                 afford to pay for both her weekly 
                                 dialysis and the prescription 
                                 drugs necessary for her to 
                                 survive, and -
Little lower, Laura. Rocks, Dad.
Mr. Vice President, you were
sayin?

....elsewhere, in Roswell County, New Mexico, five shadowy figures drag
several rectangular voting machines and ballot boxes through the red silt
of dry alluvial bedrock, all the way to the edge of Coyote Thumbnail
Gulch, wherein they toss them and they land, far below, with a muted
thump. In Iowa, amid the plenty, the Lebanese Mafia pauses in the middle
of a cornfield to let an eighteen wheeler go by on the highway. The
lumbering giant passed, they resume their work, burying several shoebox-
sized ballot containers deep below the stiffening winter crop. It is a
Field of Dreams to which none will come. Still elsewhere, in Milwaukee,
while the locals feast on a victory diet of macrobrew beer and Poznan
kielbasi, a tall man in a well-tailored impeccably tidy shoes walks up to
a newspaper-clad wino in a filthy, puddle-dotted alley. They talk,
briefly, and minutes later the man with the Rolex escorts the man with the
brown paper bag to the nearby public school, today the polling place,
whispering into his ear as he slides a pack of cigarettes into the poor
fellow's torn overcoat pocket.  Somewhere overseas, or rather above them,
in the net-slung cargo hull of an old military transport, agents of the
"Fisc" tear open the sealed ballot returns of low-income soldiers serving
in the terrorist-tortured Gulf, and affix new stamps, new postage and new
hole punches where none had previously been....

                 That's right, and can you hold on, can you 
                 just hold on a minute Governor, we're going
                 through one of those 
                 ah roaming ah
                 interference spots.

        - look Al this ain't right a hundred percent is a hundred
        percent not ninety eight. But stop, hang on you won't 
        believe this - look we're looking
        at maybe a thousand maybe maybe nine
        hundred Al it's like three hundred in the last
        precinct- and things happen Mr. Vice President -
        Jesse just called they had troopers
        out there checking black guys for 
        convictions scaring them away - Look Pat Buchanan just
        called says there's like three grand people
        didn't vote for him voted for you Al cut it out now  
        give me that phone Al wouldya? Hey driver - youeee, 
        right now.

So we won?

        -Maybe. There's real margin. All sorts of things
        happen. Who knows?


<i>
How the butterfly ballots reel down the throngs.
</i>


Hello?
                                 You won't - It's Al again.
Al! Oh, hi there, Al. Dick 
and I were just talking over 
the cabinet. How you like - you
mind I ask you? - Liddy for
Defense?
                                 You won't believe it, but -
                                 or maybe you will, you know - 
                                 I don't - don't know if things 
                                 Things may have turned around.

The - you mean?
                                 I don't, it's all to soon to say,
                                 still. Things may still turn,
                                 may turn around. But I have,
                                 George, I've turned around.
                                 I'm headed back. No speech,
                                 speech, no. It's up in the air!
Well!

 Sort through it all, recount the people's will!
 Ring up the vote on special interests' till,
 Reveal the mandate that our shining leader
 must secure, impel the pundits, readers,
 viewers of the tube to revel, unified!
   The feeble victor won't be deified.
   No grassroots will propels those two.
   The corporation rules all - even you!
   This pair is like The Emperor and Vader -
   They only look to Liberty to raid her.
Is that a Bush on Austin's granite hill?
Don't fret my Jeb, we'll have the voting will.
Panhandle's pulse will pound poor Al. Dade county
yields something altogether else, bounty
for Buchanan. Nader may have tipped it 
as old folks bitch that they have slipped it -
But not their bowels, and not their bank account.
  The scowls! A crook ... a Florida recount!
  In dear God's waiting room they fidget, flit
  beneath the sunshine, tarry, carry it!
  The lawsuits gather, pennies in a fount.
  And O! how tensions and confusions mount!

"First of all, we are sick and tired of you people talking in iambic
pentameter and using 
easy rhymes to distract us from what's really going on. What is that
shit?"

The regulations lay it all out clear:
This form is proper in election year.
We measure out our speech now word by word
As canvassers enumerate the herd.

"Kiss my ass, ye Yalies. Harvard boys too.
We should have elected Jesse speaker, not you.
But before you run away with your CNN erection
Would you just tell me, please, who won this election?" 


<i>
Altogether elsewhere, vast
herds of asses move across
miles and miles of elephant grass
silently, as votes are cast.
</i>


-Nick Montfort                    We put the "er..." back into hypertext.
<www.nickm.com> <nickm at nickm.com>       The Ed Report. <www.edreport.com>