Thursday, June 25, 2009

If Women Get the Vote



Here's a poem for Poetry Friday on Thursday. I'm heading to Maine today for a wedding.

A poet friend of mine, who chooses to remain anonymous, sent me the following “ironic” poem—and asked if I’d consider posting it at Political Verses.


If Women Get the Vote

19th Amendment
Ratified August 18, 1920

There’s no use to pretend,
The world’s about to end,
If women get the vote.

The Catholics'll get in,
The blacks and Jews'll win,
If women get the vote.

Who wants to take the chance
That they'll be wearing pants,
If women get the vote?

Egads, I do believe
They might just up and leave,
If women get the vote.

And once their muscle’s flexed,
What horrors happen next,
If women get the vote?

Now just imagine, friend,
The message this will send.
There’s no use to pretend,
We know the world will end,
If women get the vote.

Kelly Herold is doing the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Crossover.

Monday, June 1, 2009

The Vietcong Tunnels: A Poem by J. Patrick Lewis

Well...I guess you could say that May was vacation month at Political Verses. I didn't post one rhyming rant. I have a poem for you today thanks to the generosity of poet J. Patrick Lewis.


The Vietcong Tunnels
by J. Patrick Lewis

Some were narrow, some were deep,
But all of them snick-snaked along
Into your agitated sleep:
The tunnels of the Vietcong.

And they were dug to fight the war
Americans had thought was right.
The staunch belief they held before
They learned where they were sent to fight:

A jungle that defied all maps.
The shambles of liana vines
Disguised a trip of booby traps
And other anti-human mines.

And there were those GIs who crawled
Inside the holes like stealthy cats,
Individuals who were called
Many things and tunnel rats.

What, you might ask, did GIs do
Inside the burrow of the foe?
Well, this was war, that much is true,
But it was many years ago.

We quit the war and stopped the bomb,
Still confounding right and wrong.
Still spidered under Vietnam?
The tunnels of the Vietcong.