John Grey
I knock down clapboard houses.
I fling garages in the air.
Blue or red county?
I reject the argument
because I don’t know
the difference.
Like why does this one
drop Valium
and another ride a bicycle.
And one attends to a garden
while another ploughs the fields.
They’re all uprooted.
Tupperware parties.
Fast food palaces.
Some are paid back for their idleness.
Others are defeated
despite all that hard work.
I spin an empty airplane.
I topple an overloaded school bus.
And I’m no antidote to all
that local government self-love.
Some may get blown away.
Others remain untouched.
It has nothing to do with what
they tell you on the stump.
Some guy drives a red SUV
to meet up with Charlene.
He never gets there.
Another figures he’s in line
to be president of the country.
He loses a daughter
but he gets the job.
I’m not God.
I don’t make judgement calls.
In truth, I’m no more than a force of nature.
I borrow the air, the sky, for a while.
Then I give it back to you.