Think Tank

Oct 23 2013

Turns out the think tank

is a big glass aquarium.

Intellectuals are thrown in,

gang-up like piranhas

on contrarians.

Free thinkers can’t swim

especially vegetarians.

They haven’t learned to breathe,

too pleased

with the sound of their own voice.

There is a slick of chum

red-meat conservatives

whet their teeth on.

Prick the bubbles, gurgling up

and there’s a fishy smell.

Which can’t be helped

when you piss where you swim.

The tenured professors school.

While the government men

tend to the coral,

gleaning little morsels

where no one will notice them.

Free-market fundamentalists

are stream-lined barracuda.

Who preen in the myth of the self-made man,

while gobbling up the food

that drifts down from heaven.

.

And CEOs, cruising through

like imperial tuna.

You can put the big kahuna

in a little pond,

and he’ll still thunder on

about maximizing profit.

There is only so much air

in this self-contained world

of flat stagnant water.

Confused faces

smushed against the glass,

doleful fish eyes

peering out.

But we hardly notice

as we hurry past,

racing for the shark tank.

 No reason why I wrote this poem, except to have a little fun. I came across “think tank”, and the image I usually get when I read those words flashed momentarily. Which seemed to me a perfect starting point for some kind of mischief. If I’m being serious about anything, it’s my implied criticism of those more ideologically oriented think tanks and their tiresomely predictable results.