by Howard Richard Debs
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| Win McNamee/Getty Images accompanying “The Big Picture: Danger ahead,” NPR, January 7, 2022 |
I stayed up until the wee hours
wakeful and fearful, riveted by
the proceedings of the U.S. House
of Representatives, 435 voting
members officially; as if votes matter—
which they do indeed since sold
on the auction block of avarice
and greed for power for the sake
of it, for with power comes privilege,
aggrandizement, garnering the purse
of a play plot based on chaos theory
its final act to be the end of a democracy.
Howard Richard Debs is a recipient of the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. His essays, fiction, and poetry appear internationally in numerous publications. His photography is featured in select publications, including in Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge” artist and guest editor. His book Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words (Scarlet Leaf Publishing) is the recipient of a 2017 Best Book Award and 2018 Book Excellence Award. His latest work Political (Cyberwit Press) is the 2021 American Writing Awards winner in poetry. He is co-editor of New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust forthcoming from Vallentine Mitchell of London, publisher of the first English language edition of Anne Frank's diary. He is listed in the Poets & Writers Directory.