Talking Politics
July 26 2009


We talk about politics.
Anything, actually —
celebrity sightings
religion, sex.

He rails against
all those smirking bloated phonies,
with slippery handshakes
and gravy-stained shirts.
While I rant and rave
about pay-offs, and pandering.
Which leaves us feeling smug, self-satisfied.
We reward ourselves
with cold imported beer.
The situation in Uzbekistan is scandalous, I rage,
premium foam
clinging to my lip.
The new administration is in over their heads, he proclaims,
almost gloating.

He refrains from mentioning
my mother, his wife,
who is not permitted, yet
to leave the ward
unescorted.
I wait for him to ask
about my brother, his first-born son,
who haven’t spoken
in months.

We exchange a “fine, thanks ...and you?”,
shake hands with manly insouciance,
race, reaching for the bill.

I notice his distracting habit
of folding, unfolding
a paper napkin,
tearing-off long even strips
as he talks.
When I notice my own busy hands
nervously twisting a napkin,
and drop it, fast.

Bad manners, I reproach myself.
And try extra hard
not to notice anything else.



2 things converged to kick-start this poem.

First was hearing Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes) recount meeting -- as an adult and after many years apart -- with the father who had abandoned them as children. Who, while never asking about the family, was content to to talk enthusiastically about the situation in N. Ireland, about the usual Irish martyrs and tragic heroes (something the Irish are apparently particularly good at!) In my family, I don't think we talk at all easily about personal or emotional issues; but politics is always easy, almost a relief. A convenient form of evasion and denial, I suppose.

Second was James (Arthur), who in a recent email strenuously asserted that he was not interested in politics because they're all "self-interested liars and cheats" (I paraphrase). (James, isn't it possible -- and, as a good citizen, desirable -- to ignore the politicians, but still take an interest in public policy?) Which gave me that colourful opening.

This poem is mostly about denial: the unconscious, as well as the deliberate, kind. How even the conventionally "forbidden" topics of politics, religion and sex are easy, compared to the personal and confessional. And about how we are all helpless creatures of the family culture in which we were raised; how -- to resort, again, to cliche -- "the acorn doesn't fall far from the oak".