SONNET

by GM PALMER

from Half A Year

If today is inauguration day
remember to turn off your televisions.
Don't read what the newspapers have to say.
Don't read the posts from academic prisons.
Don't listen to the hatemongers and their jive.
Ignore the fawning sycophantic crowd.
Look outside at winter, hard, alive.
Hear the news of the red-tailed hawks crying loud.
Tomorrow the written world will not see change-
but the sun will rise to an ever-changing song
over the crowds of swallows who arrange
a million brilliant patterns in their throng.
And those who feed from the cancer- trough of fame
will hang their bloody, blinded eyes in shame.