A FOLLOWING

by David Feela

Cartoon from HubSpot at Mashable.

If you like me
I promise
to like you.
If enough of you
follow me
a social platform
will emerge
constructed of
digital timbers
sturdy enough
to hold the weight
of a million
similar minds.
We don’t have to be
indistinguishable,
so long as
you approve of
what I say.
I don’t know
where you live
or even have
the time to find out
but truth conforms
to no geography.
Let’s just say
it’s sufficient
that our thoughts
are linked. 
Connect me
with others
and we’ll grow
a constituency.
Like me.
We’ll be a multitude.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays How Delicate These Arches released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.

WHERE ARE YOU NOW, ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, THAT YOUR PARTY NEEDS YOU?

by George Salamon

#BankLobbyistAct

“And Eleanor always took a stand

For the hungry and the homeless all across the land.”

—Jonathan Sprout, “Eleanor”

The new liberal elite,
Ungenerous of heart,
Narrow of mind,
Intolerant of the other,
In denial of complexity,
Souls as dead as those
You pretend to hate
But see fit to serve.
Technocrats of delusion,
Your masters orchestrate
Your intrusion into
Their empire of cronyism and collusion.
Amused by your shouts of resistance,
As their paychecks assure your compliance.


George Salamon agrees with the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818 to 1897) who wrote: "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity."