Whether it’s in the wide bland sky
of DC, or that
of New York, nibbled by towers,
the view is of everything;
but few of the men and fewer women
look. If they gazed down and saw
the funny president and his half-
or unconnected thugs
reduced to the size of fireplugs
and tourists, being mobbed by the mob,
it would bear no interest. Neither does the room,
which may, apart from the glass wall, be
whorls of plaster and mahogany
or the usual grey lozenge,
each amplifying the ego in its way.
The canapés, as flawless as their servers,
are more important; most
is he, who after flacks praise higher flacks
and the highest praises him, detaches himself
from greyness, dabs from his lips
some mini-crabcake, takes the podium.
He is a flaking pyramid.
But power transcends the things of the flesh.
And if, impossibly,
he went among a milling throng
of lesser, Davos or cowboy money,
few would recognize him till
he said a magic word. He is that word.
But now his own words halt,
resume. Sometimes he pats
his lips. The anecdotes from many worlds
of investment, the multilayered
elusive tips, the always hopeful
futures he outlines seem
thin. His listeners divide in two,
each group more stimulated than dismayed.
One thinks, If the Mandate of Heaven
has flown, it must settle anew;
the other that there’s information,
input even in emptiness.
And now some eyes roam out and down
to where, however secular, the crowd
thinks only about God.

© Frederick Pollack

Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press), and two collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Many other poems of his are in print and online journals.