A new offering

My hands are more brutal
than the hands of those who raped you
but I have never used them.

These shovels, that you touch,
have heaped soil on every father's
grave, yet have no father to bury.

This new offering, spread
like a girl like a magazine,
is wearing a man's body,
is an unburnt offering, has not
been placed on the altar, and
has never been properly ritualized.

It is free and its fangs are all hands,
are all toes in sand, are all soft in touching
where others have wounded
entrances into existence.

I recently received one of New Hampshire State Senator Tom Eaton's campaign flyers in my mailbox, and took a look at the section entitled "Sponsoring and Passing Legislation that Makes a Difference". Among Eaton's proudest accomplishments is his sponsorship of SRJ 1, a bill described as follows: "Joining with every New Hampshire State Senator to honor our Red Sox". Boy, I got a good laugh out of that one. Could he be any more pompous and empty if he tried? It reminds me of John Kerry's "Who among us does not enjoy NASCAR?". Such populist posturing illuminates, wonderfully, how out-of-touch politicians really are. I can't wait to run for office myself, so that I can make such grand statements as: "I, too, place great importance on having a cold beer every now and then".

Politicians might as well stop trying to convince us that they're just "regular guys". It's insulting, and it's also a waste of their time. "Regular guys" are too busy living their pathetic lives to care much about politics, which is why insulated geeks like Kerry and Eaton run the world. Real "regular guys" "honor our Red Sox" by sitting in front of the TV for four hours every night as insipid, overprivileged demagogues run their country into the ground.

--LUKE BUCKHAM

The wolf in pants

The wolf is wearing pants.
The deforestation evident in the kitchen
is breathing fire down his hairy neck.
He is trying to believe in the ancient prophecies
of a thousand-year reign of peace and love.
But those words are old now
and he hears the hearts of trees crippling
the bitter outsides of the world.
Nature is doing it. Nature is bringing peace.
And he is not included in her plans, this time.
And the wolf sits down on a stool in his kitchen
and the the wolf tries to put his face in his hands
but his nose is too long. And the wolf
takes off his pants
and cries.