by David Southward
Amazing, what a guy like me
can do for voters who can’t see
what’s good for them. I’ve hatched a plan
to make their state a wonderland!
I broke the unions, stripped their rights—
and though it sparked some ugly fights,
the squawking’s dwindled to a peep
and labor now comes oh-so-cheap.
I turned the federal money down
that would’ve linked up town to town
with light rail. Jobs were lost, but hey,
it kept the socialists away.
Natural gas? Now
that I’d tap.
It’s ours if we just frack the crap
out of Wisconsin’s woods (though first
her residents must be coerced).
The jobs report still sucks, the budget
can’t be balanced. Hell, let’s fudge it:
keep the taxes low by raping
schools, the poor, and park landscaping.
I passed a law that welfare queens
must view their fetuses on screens
before aborting. God will care
for those unwanted babes, I swear.
With cuts in funding, it’s a breeze
to gut state universities.
They nurture liberals, stir up minds
and threaten us with picket lines.
I’m loved by all the billionaires,
which may explain why no one dares
to question me. If someone tries,
I’ll stare him down with my dead eyes.
If I could gain
complete control,
I’d sell the public sector whole
to the highest-bidding financier—
and run it like an overseer.
It seems to me we’ve turned a page:
I’ve ushered in a bold new age
in which a scoundrel goes scot free.
An age of proud cupidity.
David Southward teaches literature in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His poems have appeared in The New Verse News, The Lyric, and Voices on the Wind.
