Schmoozing With the Muckity-Mucks - April 29 2022

 

Schmoozing With the Muckity-Mucks

April 29 2022

Politics

does not attract

the highest calibre candidate.

We let ourselves be ruled

by real estate agents

who have their faces painted

on bus stop benches,

divorce lawyers

who are tired of the law.

Because life has never been better

than when they were President

of their high school class.

And after all

we don't pay attention

to city hall

until the garbage goes uncollected,

the neighbour starts renting

to people who party all night.

The civil servants sigh

and answer the phone.

The technocrats

who actually know something

make the city run.

While the politicians

get their pictures taken

and schmooze with the muckity-mucks,

who will be good for business

after the voters turf them out.

Still, they are us,

flawed and vain

and a little larcenous,

but well-meaning at heart,

and good enough

to muddle through.

Who seem to need to be loved

more than the rest of us.

Our esteemed city fathers

and mother hens,

who really do enjoy

kissing babies

and pressing the flesh,

cutting ribbons

with over-sized scissors

as the they smile for the camera

and step up to the mic.

Why anyone would run for public office is beyond me. That sort of ambition and neediness self-selects for a certain type of person, one who isn't likely to be the most well-informed, best critical thinker, or of the highest ethical calibre. Or worse. In other words, pretty much any Republican politician in the party of Trump! Municipal politicians, though, are perhaps the most harmless. And certainly the best for me to zero in on without degenerating into an impassioned rant of incredulity at the Margaret Taylor Greenes and Mat Gaetzes. (As I just did! Also, I try to make my poems evergreen, and one fervently hopes that 10 years from now no one will even recognize those names.) And as they say, all politics is local.

I realize that there are civic-minded and idealistic politicians. Even ones that are good at what they do, and have sacrificed lucrative careers for public service. Nevertheless, by and large the political class is mediocre. And, because of this odd self-selection – among other impediments to public office for many people – not really representative.

I think city fathers is clearly sexist. My apologies if the corrective — mother hens — strikes you as even more so! In my defence, there is no good equivalent, and I really wanted stick with that slightly anachronistic and endearingly patriarchal term instead of finding something neutrally non-gendered. Because for me city fathers invokes an image of a well-fed, self-satisfied, and somewhat self-important local politician. Meanwhile, mother hens works so nicely in terms of rhythm and rhyme.

The title is cribbed from one of my favourite lines. I really don't like stealing my own thunder that way; but in this case, couldn't resist!