"sorry alien electoral system" by John Reinhart, Frequent Contributor

sorry alien electoral system

John Reinhart

in the one brief encounter,

the aliens gathered to raise

tentacles – yea, nay – a

social media moment repeated

in virtual ad infinitum as

the desperate sat home on their

suckers, consumers to a system

lost in a board game – watching

reruns of their fractionalized

impractical entanglement, slurping

sweetened alphabet soup;

the aliens pleased themselves

at victory even as they were bought,

sold, bought again discounted, with no

voice – involvement tokenized, packaged,

sweetened as superdelegations

maneuvered the strings for

albino squidgers from college to write

the textbooks, cookbooks, phonebooks,

recomposing alphabets to spell

convenience in every bowl, soup

fed daily to increasing alien waste lines

Poet's Notes:  What would aliens think about our electoral system? Perspective is all the rage, at least when it's one's own. In opposition to something, anything. Rather than perspectives. As in multiple. As in how other people perceive the world, why, and how that might make curious oblong shapes in the sand. Rather than lines. Chalk circles. Fairy rings. All inclusive magic. All expenses paid. What would politicians think about our daily lives?