A VERY DEFINITE VOTE by Guy Seguiban

Election time is a high-water mark
of everyone.
The candidates vying for the most
prestigious posts are ubiquitous.
Tumultuously wooing and courting
the electorates.

Not much of a big deal to a poet.
to muddle himself in this muckraking
pastime gives him a helluva hell
of time – perhaps losing everything \
and gaining nothing.

But all things considered –
I ain’t a candidate but a poet,
my star has not burned out
at the core – so I ain’t yet dead
in the water.

I have a voice undeniably participative;
Thanks to this poetic license –
no Ali Baba can steal or seal my lips.
I walk my talk.

Look, my essence of living is not to be
in league of the high and mighty;
just happy to be in the mainstream,
only sad not to go gaga over
a certain candidate.

I won’t fall in love anymore with that
paragon of beauty, I swear –
for my soul was badly bruised,
for what happened once in a front row.

Seated together attending a debate,
she never flash a smile to me.
More amused than aghast,
I concluded perhaps she needed
to visit her dentist!


What could I say of that king?
One of the three who visited the child
in the manger.
A niche in Congress will still require
a tedious building of a huge bird’s nest.

“But he has all the virtues I dislike
and none of the vices I admire.”
Churchill was right in describing him.
Forsaking my case when I needed
most his legal services left me in a quandary.
It’s my turn now to dump him
like a hot potato.

I am not keen about him
Sorry, I won’t vote for a kin.
In his baptism of fire –
he carries the famous name of a wife
like a second skin.
That’s nothing to crow about.
The aura of a wife is not transferable.

I will maintain my vapid silence
as to his academic excellence.
To have a fire in the belly
is better than a crown
tilting in one’s head.

His tirades inside a post-graduate
classroom bludgeoned me like
a red tomato to death.

But nothing in my poetic license
suggests a death wish.
My own vote won’t diminish or tarnish
the track record of those destined
to win.