No subject

And spot the bugs and eliminate the bugs one by one –
We can try but it is liable to be a laugh – horsefeathers –
Like the man who stood out in the rain to catch
A water supply with his outstretched arms holding a sieve.

We can imagine we’re as dumb as Archie of Duffy’s Tavern.
Or we can see ourselves sitting bright among the Quiz Kids
Never asking dumb questions never asked us – like –
Does Mister Wafflehorn, the dean of radio commentators,
Have any slight inkling from day to day, week to week,
Of what Joe Pool thinks, says, does, wants, wishes?
Would Wafflehorn under any conditions whatsoever
Slant the news, preach and teach, cry out loud
Any propositions that would bother Joe Pool and irk him?

Now these many years Deep Oil and Pool sponsor Hank,
Meaning Hank the Wafflehorn, Hank the commentator dean.
Can it be that Hank pleases Deep Oil. Hank pleases Pool?
We don’t know – we deduce, infer, presume – we don’t know.
This we do know – Pool is right of center – so is Hank.

Should Pool go center or left would Hank go likewise?
We merely know that they both now hate the left,
The vermin, the varmints, the viscous, the viscous left,
conceived in sin, hell-born, hell-bound, the left, the left.
Slimy, inhuman, subhuman, out of cesspools, the left, the left.

Should Hank go left and Pool stay right of center – then what?
We don’t know a thing baby – only the event itself could tell.
Pool might say, "Throw Wafflehorn out on his tin ear,"
And then again Pool might say, "Let him have his head."

Where Pool is he could say it either way – it’s his show
Where Hank is he would take whatever was handed him.
And if he didn’t have a script he would ad lib.
He know what he wants to say on his own
Without anybody else cutting in, either Deep Oil or Pool,
    So we tune him in and get a scuttle of suds
Or tune him out and give him the gate, the air,
On account of this is a free country –
    "Good night – and here
    is Kyle Rance
    for the Deep Oil Company."





Carl Sandburg
written in the late 1940’s
recently published in the book
"Poems for the People"