all I want in life is a little love
to take the pain away


Mitch Epstein, Tag Sale III, 2000

A poem by Klipschutz:

CAMPAIGN DIARY:

October Madness
(Leaves Turn, Days Grow Short)

1.

The RNC Witch Doctor
Gets Faced & Fucks With Mitt

-I’m thinking of a number
between 46 and 48. . .
Anyone?

2.

The Veep Debate

-My boss is gonna beat your boss, like a drum.

-My boss bought the drum kit and sold it off for parts.
Then he capitalized a little box made in Malaysia
that pays no taxes and plays all night for free.

3.

Don’t Get Cockblocky

There are registered voters
and likely voters,

voter suppression
and Diebold machines.

There are wheels inside the turbines
in the rubber rooms of power,

and off-duty assholes
who take their work home with them.

4.

The Back Nine

In my raw youth, I played golf,
and even though I smoked dope like a fiend
and hated Nixon and protested the War,
somehow I always liked Jack Nicklaus,
“The Golden Bear,” who knocked
Arnold Palmer off his throne
and never embarrassed himself
like Tiger Woods.

Soft-spoken, he got the job done,
the job of winning.

Then, long retired, 72, a “legend
and Ohio native,” he endorsed Mitt Romney.
They appeared on a rostrum arm in arm
at a rally at Westerville South High School
where Jack said Mitt was the man to “lead the charge.”

“When I won, I certainly didn’t apologize
for my success,” Nicklaus said.

“He’s god in central Ohio,”
Columbus resident Tim Strawn, 62, chimed in.
“It’s good to have god on your side.”

Yeah, well, we have Dylan on ours.

And Jack Nicklaus is still fine by me.
He’s grandfathered in.


Translation
-- by Franz Wright

Death is nature's way
of telling you to be quiet.

Of saying it's time
to be weaned, your conflagration starved
to diamond.

I'll give you something to cry about.

And what those treetops swaying
dimly in the wind spelled.