Politics on the Dining Table
Two consecutive weeks, two political poems. Something must be there in the air just now!
Politics on the Dining Table
And the evenings were battlegrounds.
.
My son spoke of the farmers,
and I spoke of conspiracies,
he stood up and spoke of divisions,
I reminded him of the burgeoning GDP.
Everything was kosher, nothing resolved.
I secretly loved him for his ability to believe,
he openly hated me for supporting extremities.
He stomped out exasperated, I stayed back,
a foolish smile plastered on my face.
.
I knew it was merely smoke on water,
belief masquerading as reality,
indignation knackered enough to be argument.
And I thought there was too much joy to be resolved,
to get lost in the labyrinth of dogma;
for a son to leave dessert uneaten,
and for me to eat it guiltless.
.
And I mulled on how he loved
Louboutins and Krug Rose,
and how his dualities sat unreconciled,
but easily, in the expanse of his wide open arms.
.
There was time enough, I thought, for him
to find his way beyond arguments;
maybe when we are in Hiroshima this autumn,
as he sees what was destroyed,
what survived,
and he weeps in front of a memorial,
a remembrance of madness
where people bore the brunt
of lessons taught by a polity
which couldn't care.
.
As he returns for his blood orange sorbet
and I curl my hands around a cup of earl grey,
the night lazily drifts in
and the buzz of an ordinary day winds down.
He links his arm to mine, as we gaze
out of the window into the lake below,
strangely reconciled, far removed
to what never adds up -
a patriotism without humanity*,
and a sum, yes, but
of all that diminished us.
.