Shutter the Parthenon!
The Rotunda and the Colosseum,
all the Greco Roman and utilitarian
buildings. Cicero silent, the lights of comity
in government centers and departments
Turned off, the furnaces
simmering cool,
bridges degenerating,
reason on furlough.
Starve democracy!
Make the Wall of fear
So high and drill the pylons so
deep that only if you submit
will there be a moratorium
on the moratorium
on all outgoing checks and balances.
Keep paying into
the national emergency
like Washington
feared autocrats from the outset,
printing checks with
imbalances then
placing federal phones on voicemail:
the public servant serving himself.
________
Michel Krug is a poet, fiction writer, former journalist, Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars graduate, Loft Literary Center member and practicing lawyer residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His poems have appeared in Door Is A Jar, Raven’s Perch, Tuck Magazine, Poetry24, 2 Elizabeths, Main Street Mag, the Brooklyn Review and other literary magazines.
Photo by AFGE.
________
