By Srinjay Chakravarti

...The political mercury
creeps upward
as winter approaches:
Fahrenheit 9/11 by degrees.

...Democratic caucuses,
mining the ends
of rainbow coalitions
for crocks of votes

...Passing on the buck
to Indian call centres
for jobless figures:
only in an election year
can Calcutta be scapegoated
for American layoffs!
(Your call now; it's been outsourced!)

...Republicans load their supply-side canons,
tale-spin doctors parachuting facts and figures
as the greenback floats
on gusts of
Greenspan's hot air!

...Having bitten off
more than he can chew
of the Big Apple of discord,
bin Laden disappears
with his Base of fanatics
into an underworld rathole.
(We're still waiting
for him to be smoked out)

...With the twin towers
come crashing down
two pillars of world trade,
tremors echoing through
Taliban battlefields
And Baathist oilwells

...A decade passes between Senior and Junior:
Uncle Sam and Sad Damn
still oil the infernal wheels
of the perpetual war machine
...It's a bird -- it's a plane -- it's Superman!
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe -- He has the power!
No beating about the Bushes -- it's SuperPowerMan!

First published in
THE PEDESTAL MAGAZINE