Photo by Tina Rataj-Berard on Unsplash

Chris Rodriguez

A Dim View of Election Year 2016

Regular program schedule replaced with
previews of promises accompanied
by pure corn drenched in rancid butter.
Mouths and minds pucker like sphincters.
Hats thrown in the circus ring
Free for all (for only the not-so-low cost of wi-fi).
Two left standing, face off, mouth off with
referees of factdom standing in the balance.
Media presstitutes plant patriotic false flags of doubt,
recalcitrant claims,
explosions of expose´.
Second amendment weapons assault the Landing Zone of our rights.
Administrative big guns pound the public with
last minute executive orders of
“shock and martial law,” and
bizarre threats from alien space weather,
while a possible polar vortex induced by drought,
creates a water board of private ownership.
Reruns of previous presidential seasons
birth record numbers of
refugees from terror who enter walled worlds,
trailing the suffocating smell of ISIS.
Sensational Saturday Night satire – Live in New York!
airs amid threats of financial free fall,
secrets exposed, blown out of proportion by
IEDs of invading ideologies.
Spontaneously aborted babies are dropped unceremoniously
into courts of Supreme judgment.
Sexual scandal abounds, no restricted viewing, rated PG 1 to 100
Mud-slinging, pants jingling
diversions created from tattered towers of ivory elite
who allow translated Rainbows,
resurrected from the rubble of redirection
to eliminate waste indiscriminately,
depositing piles of panic in public places,
while wiping correct political ends with tissues of issues.
Shoot ‘em up cops and bloggers fight for/against
Blacks and Bundys – do militia lives matter?
Hard drive invasion of Benghazi emails
place 3:00 a.m. fingers on the red button budget
defending defense.
Supporting states raise platform gallows
swinging with hanging chads of guilty main parties.
Citizens coping with taxing climate of change,
proliferate profiteers of health care,
foreign hands in cyber realm pockets,
privately controlled public education that
messes with minds of minor details while
truth trashed history is changed to reflect
modern movements traveling toward New World Orders.
Religion and state separated by fracking fault line edicts
of who can, who can’t
and where, when and how to
stomp on steel-toed foundational principles.
Sorry! Season cancelled due to riotous ratings.
All eyes are on the America! Show -
series finale?

---

Chris Rodriguez has retired from conventional life. She currently enjoys gardening and raising backyard chickens at her cottage in Pocatello, Idaho. Her eclectic collection of poems, personal essays, stories for adults and children have been published in various magazines and anthologies. “Out of the Frying Pan” appeared in Anthology Askew Volume 003 - Askew Adventures; “Cookie Man and the Six Box Lady” in The Way to My Heart: An Anthology of Food-Related Romance, edited by Kelly Ann Jacobson, and “Like a Hawk” in the Missing anthology (Horrified Press), plus five others coming soon from Thirteen O’Clock Press and in Letters To Me & Other Chronic Illness Warriors: Vol 1 (Ivy Cirillo Books).