What of this 2015 Election? - Katherine L. Gordon

I have heard the rants of taxes
clang of coins
money in our pockets
if we have some,
what of calamitous climate
what of homeless
what of native peoples pleading equal place?
What of veterans, unemployed, elderly poor,
what of sharing
in this tight-fisted rule?
Any mention of the desperate dying?
Refugees we created in brag of bomb barrage?
Don’t cover your face, be of old stock,
some of us will be smugly rich,
what of our soul- values in this election?

Katherine L. Gordon

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Thanks, Katherine, for two hugely timely poems. This campaign has been the biggest dud I can remember, and considering its importance in choosing the direction Canada will take, and the lack of discussion of crucial global issues like climate change and refugees, it's a pity that petty, irrelevant BS wedge issues like the niqab* have dominated.

The NDP, which should have been 'the party of change', instead fell into the trap of debating Harper on his chosen issues like the economy. And Trudeau cleverly followed an old Liberal trick of campaigning from the 'left' with a couple of progressive sounding soundbites, signifying nothing. The lack of any leadership, and especially vision, from our politikal klass proves once again that it's the Canadian people, voiced through people's poets like yourself, who are the true agents of change. I still haven't decided whether to hold my nose and vote for zionist, Thatcher-praising Angry Tom, or to follow my conscience and vote for the only candidate I feel any respect for, Elizabeth May. 

Again, many thanks for articulating how so many of us feel about this election.

peace & poetry power!
Chris & Chase Wrfffffffffffffffffffff!



* At the start of the silly niqab thing I kept hearing the word 'knee-cap' on the radio, and I wondered what the heck the IRA was doing involved in the Canadian election.


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Late October Landscape


Here in the umberous peace of late October
the rustling cornfields shake
with the tremor of marching feet
a world away in darkening Europe,
thousands of weary migrants tramp a beat
that all the places of the planet shiver to.
It is the dying quarter of a gun-rage year.
Brave birds still plan migration
with their songs of life and love
across the lands of man-torn terror,
no corner to carry babes and scant belongings
out of the range of endless bombs,
clouds not of nature but of a new black death.
Here in darkling wood-paths owl and coyote converse
in a season of restless change and orange radiance,
which of us will choose the light?
 
Katherine L. Gordon