Portside

Presidential

By Carol Kanter

Should our highest office blunder, fall

on poorer times

for garnering respect–

let alone a mutual cherishing

between citizens and head of state–

fusing bonds or bondage

based on fear and trembling

then the title holder

unschooled in ethics or humanity,

would only know to push

his own agenda, which is to say himself,

assuming, accruing power

and riches to confer on loyals

who kowtow to him,

abhorring any person he considers

“other,” while his own thin skin

barely covers an emptiness

that might inspire our compassion

were he not entrancing

masses plus

parents who raise sons

to emulate, proud when theirs become

the playground bullies out

to strongarm and win at any cost,

parents whose daughters train

to cotton to the ones on top

addicted to a mythic guarantee of Safe.

Until it disappears and it’s too late.

Carol Kanter’s poetry has appeared in over seventy literary journals and

anthologies. FinishingLine Press published her first two chapbooks: “Out of

Southern Africa,” and “Chronicle of Dog.” Peterborough Poetry Project published

her third, “Of Water.” Carol and her photographer husband have paired poems and photographs

from their travels and published them in four coffee-table type books. (See www.DualArtsPress.com.)  Her book And Baby Makes Three explores the emotional transitions to parenthood.