You can’t get anything clean
Without getting something dirty
But you can get everything dirty
Without getting anything clean
Ought to be a country song
I’m thinking as I sponge out the bathtub
.
Wish fulfillment is why cleaning products
Are called Magic and have a genie emblem
And I’m thinking of the Green New Deal
As I water the amaryllis
Which has finally flowered
On the last day of February
After years of no bloom
.
You can’t make an omelet
Without breaking eggs
But you can break a lot of eggs
And not have an omelet
I’ve been there, at meetings
Where somebody sang
We’ll dance on your grave motherfucker
.
And I enrolled in the Peace and Freedom party
But wound up voting for Dick Gregory
An unremembered saint
Instead of a convicted rapist
Or the Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate
And Nixon got four more years
.
Water under the bridge between generations
I’m for both the Green and the New Deal
The old New Deal that brought electricity
To the South, the CCC, and the WPA
But left Black people out of the benefits
And the Green Deal that we need
If we aren’t going to hell in an icecap melt
.
You can’t fool all of the people
All of the time but you can fool
All of the people some of the time
And some of the people all of the time
And if they live in Montana and Wyoming
That seems to be enough.
(c) 2019 Arlene Weiner
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Wow, Arlene! Nice to see you here!
LikeLiked by 1 person