There is a guy elected to congress,
Who stands in front of everyone
and talks about patriotic dinosaurs
of which (against their lizard brains
and overwhelming hunger) let a human,
the forgotten messiah of his party,
Ronald Reagan, ride upon its back.
The old movie star with crude oil hair
Is depicted wielding a machine gun,
with a rocket launcher strapped to his back.
I thought about the victory garden
of irony which is this political party's fruit
and labor. How that early bird ancestor
would become a few drops of gasoline
in the tank of a senator’s stretch limousine;
how it and its band of hunters might have eaten
an entire political party if the artist's rendition
had allowed for a time machine. How, the animal
would no doubt choke on our cartooned air
if we brought the beast forward to our time,
or even stopped in 1984, to visit the president
and let him ride the blood hungry dino.
Another flower from the irony garden? Reagan
is no doubt firing his machine gun and defending
his United States from all Russian attackers,
something the fantasy-filled senator will forget
next time he votes not to protect our voting systems,
or votes down the sanctions against oligarchs
and their campaign contributions. See, all you young,
© J. P. Dancing Bear
J. P. Dancing Bear - [Twitter: @jpdancingbear]
J. P.'s most recent book, Fish Singing Foxes, is out by Salmon Poetry this month. His next book, Of Gods and Monsters, later this year from Glass Lyre Press.
