whose shadow is the size of a toothpick at 1 pm on a Tuesday, stands hatless on voting day. Presidential as it were. He scratches his head in misery as the sun pops blisters atop his scalp and corns form on his shoe-shorn feet. A Typical day all around. Untrustworthy weather accumulating outside the legal polling perimeter. Offers abound for drinks aplenty, a fresh round of voting for those so inclined, willing to travel and be disguised multiple times during a long evening of ballot casting and elbow bending. No weak livers need apply. Shamocracy at its finest. Capitalism roosting in a magpie’s nest. Nothing lost except a life or two, a poet’s inspiration, cast to the dark gutter. One vote too many. One body uncounted for three days. Left with rot gut. Poisoned with promises. Stuff the boxes by drowning citizens with cheap gin again and again, leading them to the trough of patriotic duty. Treat them to another round next town over. Do it again until consciousness drains, kidneys and liver, bladder revolt. An uprising fells the body host and a corpse-to-be who waits for dawn to reveal its facedown self to upright citizens, patrons of the fine arts, those who stroll past, eyes averted from the wastrel besmirching the earth’s glory, who no doubt bought pirated, copyright and royalty-free copies of your poems and stories, who marveled at the meter and rhymes, the mysteries made magical, but saw only a body misspent, used, abused. Nevermore. Raven free. No longer needed for a philosophy of furniture. A soul wasted by demons. Abandoned by God. Who’s Collected poems was the first book Banned in Boston.
Richard Weaver is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and wrote the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005). Mugshot available upon request. (Mug not included). The author’s 600th poem was recently published. His first poem magically appeared 50 years ago in Poetry Magazine (April 1975). Some of his other pubs include: OffCourse, Misfit Mag, Burningword LJ, Slippery Elm, Red Eft Review, The Mackinaw, and Spank the carp.