Political nonsense - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

I was saddened just to hear the bitter rancour
in his voice, a sour hostility aloof of commonsense,
and ranks who sat in audience held captive to his
ranting must have felt it too. Was this the one
who said he’d lead us to a promised land? How
could a man of honour make the dead surmise
he’d cosset us with obvious and barefaced lies?

I asked my fellow listeners what they thought
about his claims that malfeasance was soured
within this state by parliamentary representatives
but not, of course, those members seated where
he sat in opposition. His disposition was to blame
the government as if he wasn’t part of it.

All the ailing wrongs he thought could spring
his party into power were teased and spun and wrung
and spread as seeds of dour dissent, I knew
he meant to state a case that wasn’t based
on truth or justice as we’d wont from Courts of Law,
and yet he had the irksome gall to ask us for our trust!

And thus the blame he sought to wield
was placed beyond the span of ordinary men
and governance and doubt, and slipped his hands
to neatly slice his foot and place it
sweetly in his carping mouth.
© I.D. Carswell