Vox Populi
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Elise Kazanjian: How To Be A Successful Dummy
It’s easy.
Just sit on your
ventriloquist’s chubby knees.
Don’t open your hinged mouth
to the cadence of his words,
nod your painted wooden face.
Roll your googly-eyes
every few minutes.
Agree with him.
He will believe you.
He does not understand nuance.
You will have to listen to him.
To his venomous words of false peace.
To his adoration of war.
To his glorification of horrors,
the bodies
torn to pieces.
To cities bombed to rubble.
To countries decimated,
all offerings on his
altar of self-worship
in his temple of treachery
where this ventriloquist
only
knows
destruction.
~~~~~
Copyright 2025 Elise Kazanjian
Elise Kazanjian is a San Francisco poet/writer who spent her childhood in Northern China. She has worked at Sunset Magazine; as Foreign Editor, CCTV, Beijing, China; and as a San Francisco pawnbroker.
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Chilling, deeply so.
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A worthy poem for a large subject.
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What an intriguing metaphor. A broken world where even the dummy is advised to be strategically dumbstruck with awe. Neither dummy nor ventriloquist be.
I sometimes think the fearless leader is based on the talking horse, Mr. Ed, though Ed’s horse-sense has been turned into that of a braying ass.
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Well-said, Jim.
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Damn that’s good.
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I agree. It’s a perfect satiric conceit.
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How frightful this poem should make any human being. Its so simple to think the bad people are the ones in jail. That I am safe even though you’re hungry. That I won’t get sick if I withhold medicine from you. That I get to be who I want even if you don’t. What happens to people in a world like that is so awfully simple.
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Exactly right, Sean. Thank you for putting the issues so succinctly.
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