[New-Poetry] Election Day

[JforJames at aol.com]

Election Year
 
Wandering the flea market, I ran across a box 
full of old campaign  buttons marked $1 per, 
and without thinking about it
I began to run my  hand through them,
these stolid white faces clattering, 
rising and  falling as I threaded my 
fingers through half-remembered names
framed by  eagles, draped in red 
and white and blue, the toothy grins 
and  tight-lipped smiles, all those 
straight-forward gazes into the shining  future
of America, but more and more I began 
to feel many slight  pinpricks, so then 
I thought of them as little vampires 
still trying to  get at our blood, or like tiny pushers 
trying to shoot us up with the dope  
of their false promises, and the more 
they stung me, the madder I got,  and the deeper 
I stuck my hand into this hive of human folly and avarice,  
and the more I stirred them up, the more I imagined
myself as some kind  of sacred beekeeper 
who had lost his leather glove, yet was still  trying
to get at the lost honey of the dreams 
some of them must have  started out with, 
their well-intentioned aspirations, a feeling 
that one  could do some good in this world,
before the back-patting, the  self-righteousness 
and the green of dollar bills that jades so many 
of  us in the  end. 
And  then I looked up and noticed 
the vendor behind the table was giving me his  
You-going-to-buy-something-buddy? look,
so I lifted my numb hand out of  the box of buttons
and walked away, my jaw clenched, locked up,
so that I  couldn't speak or even spit.

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