Susan Daniels Poetry

on a small scale
no one steals a vote.  one vote
means nothing in the final analysis
of those signing in
& closing the curtain;
it’s all cumulative

but
if you steal 1,000 votes
sealing mouths closed
with red tape, or even
10,000 or 100,000
that’s fraud
on a grand scale

& ironic
that a party
calling for fair elections
everywhere else
is willing to disenfranchise
people more likely than not
to disagree with their platform
& wrap it snug
in voter fraud legislation

but that’s okay
because they have already stolen
the names of the men
who felt most strongly about
taxation without representation
in the first place

with those bags of tea
hanging in front of their eyes
like phylacteries
obscuring vision

***for RGH, who challenged me to write a poem about disenfranchisement.  Told you, it needs a real blog post, not a poem!