Populist Elegance. William E. Scholz
And take back their Government
From politicians that do nothing,
From politicians with empty promises,
From politicians unable to command attention
With their empty rhetoric, pristine grammar, and
Hollow souls.
From My Penpal On Sacrifice
Under the knife,
Feels like a bad habit,
Like tearing the skin around my fingernails.
Like the self-disgust of a pornography addiction.
Like my deepest darkest secret on permanent display,
At The National Portrait Gallery.
How can I go down in history,
Really go down,
If I don't look the part?
Beauty in other women
Flashes before my eyes,
And I'm disgusted with myself.
I notice their eye sockets,
Deep set and provocative,
Could my cheeks be any higher?
I notice their midsection,
Flat and trim,
I'm flabby like dough,
My skin is too thick,
But for a moment,
If you could offer me yours,
I'd feel like I own it,
That toned middle,
Which arouses my desire.
I notice long legs,
And there's no fixing that,
But high heels,
Are a much healthier alt.,
Then carving into my ankles,
And ripping out my fibula.
I've had more plastic surgery,
Than I'm comfortable to admit,
And after every time,
I keep running back to you,
The feminine form, my flower,
Who gives me that which I cannot buy.
Does that make me gay?
The nose,
There's no fixing the nose,
And it’s always the first thing that I see,
Along with everything else,
But because of cartilage,
I can get a nose job,
Over and over again,
And over,
Until it falls off.
When I see a woman with a big nose,
I'm sympathetic and kind,
But when I see a woman with a nose,
Better than my own,
It’s devastating.
It hits me like a flash of lightning,
That leaves the ground desolate,
And me feeling like I want to hide,
And that usually happens right before
Somebody takes my picture.
My chance at history now lost
Because I don't look the part.
They say that over a woman's head is a glass ceiling,
For me, that glass ceiling is a belief that my appearance,
Will never match my soul,
Never be good enough
For the role that I play.
This poem, for example,
Could never be attributed to me,
Because I'm not beautiful enough,
And this poem is everything ugly,
And I'm ugly.
So I'll write it through a medium,
My penpal or typist,
Who has strength,
To bare my soul,
And offer me forgiveness,
For my cowardice and my disease.
I will never get plastic surgery again, but I need a nose job.
I will never get plastic surgery, but I feel so fat.
I will never get plastic surgery again, but I have an appointment next Tuesday.
Brother And Sister, Sister And Brother
Have I seen these breadlines before?
Have I felt the hunger pains?
I'm lost and out of time.
This is much more than the cliché,
"Those that don't learn history,
Are doomed to repeat it."
This is a failure of our world
To overcome the current age.
We just can't seem to escape our past.
We are living half in the past
If the same things keep happening to us.
Like the past is overlaid onto the future
And the present is something that we're not fully aware of.
Have I seen the unemployment numbers before,
Or the market crash?
Because it feels like I have.
And here are my visions:
I see two children ripped apart,
Reaching out for one another,
Ever trying to touch their fingernails together,
Were they brother and sister?
Did the coronavirus destroy families like the Black Plague?
Is present past sister and present future brother
Like the past and future participle of a poorly constructed verse?
Does time have an ending and a beginning as if past and future are connected by a string,
Feeding back information and scenarios to each other until finally brother and sister meet?
That's a long question,
So I'll say it more simply:
Can we ever escape Time?
I mean truly escape Time.
Can history ever stop repeating its tragedy?
The breadlines are growing now,
And pretty soon comes war,
And we are all just playing roles,
So we all see it coming from a mile away,
But nobody had the role to stop it all.
Is there one among us who can
Take scissors to the threads that link
Past