[New-Poetry] another inaugural poem

[Philip Metres]

"Letter to Barack Obama (Solstice, 2008)" by Philip Metres (pmetres at jcu.edu)


Yes, you’ll need to stay alive
to the possibilities
of disappointing us, who believe
you’d change everything

& yesterday. To dodge bullets,
those ballots of the disaffected
& the entrenched,
their undisclosed locations

in our collective mind. To stare
whole buildings back
from rubble of foreclosure
& condemnation, stand watch

over bridges to nowhere 
we’ve never known, & always
someone’s somewhere. To end stop
/loss & unlawful

combatants, extraordinary
renditions & waterboarding,
the cool abstractions that make
torture into Pet Sounds.

You’ll need to pierce the wall
of sound that power makes,
or tent yourself in your living
room & slowly go mad. Stay long

enough that we grow
used to you, scion of the globe,
become mundane as a dollar, 
flawed, iconic, yet alive. 

So when you’re called to kill 
in our name, like a lover
who’s slept with another,
we’ll never let you live

it down, though we will
never leave. Nor forgive. 

Philip Metres
Associate Professor
Department of English
John Carroll University
20700 N. Park Blvd
University Heights, OH 44118
phone: (216) 397-4528 (work)
fax: (216) 397-1723
http://www.philipmetres.com
http://www.behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com