Deborah Bogen: This Poet’s Occasional Alternative

after the great Grace Paley
to mark these dark and dangerous times

I was going to write a poem

I made a call instead it took

about the same amount of time

of course the call was a done

deal but like a poem had some

distance to go, through telephone

wires & memo pads to politicians

amidst much crumpled paper

the call already had a talking

mumbling audience among adolescent

aides and maybe even senators

on the Senate floor

everybody should like this call

it will have issues and arguments

and complaints in it many friends

will say why in the world did you

make only one

this does not happen with poems

because of unreportable

sadnesses I decided to

settle this morning for calling

a politician I may have

to wait a week a year a

generation for the right one

to finally come along

Copyright 2017 Deborah Bogen