{"id":90,"date":"2022-11-06T22:20:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-06T22:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.illinoisstate.edu\/euphemism\/18-1\/?page_id=90"},"modified":"2022-12-09T18:25:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T18:25:46","slug":"the-tornado-speaks","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/poetry\/the-tornado-speaks\/","title":{"rendered":"THE TORNADO SPEAKS"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>John Grey<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I knock down clapboard houses.<\/p>\n<p>I fling garages in the air.<\/p>\n<p>Blue or red county?<\/p>\n<p>I reject the argument<\/p>\n<p>because I don\u2019t know<\/p>\n<p>the difference.<\/p>\n<p>Like why does this one<\/p>\n<p>drop Valium<\/p>\n<p>and another ride a bicycle.<\/p>\n<p>And one attends to a garden<\/p>\n<p>while another ploughs the fields.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re all uprooted.<\/p>\n<p>Tupperware parties.<\/p>\n<p>Fast food palaces.<\/p>\n<p>Some are paid back for their idleness.<\/p>\n<p>Others are defeated<\/p>\n<p>despite all that hard work.<\/p>\n<p>I spin an empty airplane.<\/p>\n<p>I topple an overloaded school bus.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m no antidote to all<\/p>\n<p>that local government self-love.<\/p>\n<p>Some may get blown away.<\/p>\n<p>Others remain untouched.<\/p>\n<p>It has nothing to do with what<\/p>\n<p>they tell you on the stump.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Some guy drives a red SUV<\/p>\n<p>to meet up with Charlene.<\/p>\n<p>He never gets there.<\/p>\n<p>Another figures he\u2019s in line<\/p>\n<p>to be president of the country.<\/p>\n<p>He loses a daughter<\/p>\n<p>but he gets the job.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not God.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t make judgement calls.<\/p>\n<p>In truth, I\u2019m no more than a force of nature.<\/p>\n<p>I borrow the air, the sky, for a while.<\/p>\n<p>Then I give it back to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Grey &nbsp; I knock down clapboard houses. I fling garages in the air. Blue or red county? I reject the argument because I don\u2019t 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. &nbsp; They\u2019re 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\u2019m no antidote to all that local government self-love. Some may get blown&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"parent":32,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-90","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90\/revisions\/1102"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}