In A Blue State (of Mine)

If you voted for Bush
then you have delivered what
the Bush Team now calls a mandate.

In your name, or as they
will say, ‘in the name of the American
People,’ this mandate has been given.

If you voted for Bush, then you
have voted to endorse a Bush policy,
doctrine, philosophy that began some years ago

and now continues into perpetuity—that
was your mandate, regardless of when
Bush leaves, if he ever does.

In four years, Bush and his Team
have presided over at least one national disaster,
two foreign wars (one abandoned,

one not (yet)), massive transfers of wealth,
large-scale corporate corruption, and ballooning
national debt, but that’s not the point.

The point is, if you voted for Bush
then you have delivered what
the Bush Team now calls a mandate—for the future.

Which means, in your name (if you
voted for Bush) and not in mine (I
did not), Bush and his Team

are free to pursue their ends
and will do so, explicitly, ‘in the name
of the American People,’ which means you.

If you voted for Bush, then you may
have different ideas about what
a Bush Doctrine, Bush Philosophy, or Bush mandate

looks like—you most likely imagine
all sorts of things, all of them
promising and good, no doubt.

But no matter—if you voted for Bush
then you have delivered a mandate
and whatever the Bush Team does next

it does in your name, not mine.
‘In the name of the American People,’ which
means you (not me), they will pursue

their will, and they will do it on the grounds
that ‘the American People’ (you) have spoken
their will, and this will lay the clear path

to VicTorY, for Bush, for his Team, and for you,
if you voted for Bush. If you voted for Bush
(I did not, I did not deliver

any mandate, and 56 million
other people did not either), then what
happens next, what comes to pass

in the coming days, months, and years
in the name of whatever
(you, your mandate, our ‘freedom’)

is now in your hands,
is now your deal, is your
call, your baby, your play within a play.

For example, if more lives
are lost, if more blood is spilled
in the name of Bush, his Plan, and his ‘People’

then that blood is on your hands
(you who voted for Bush, who delivered
the word) not mine.

In fact, if you voted for Bush then
you can have your Bush, your Bush Team,
your Bush Doctrine, and your Bush Blood—

you delivered it, you can have it.
Whatever Bush does in your name
(and he will do it, shamelessly, in my name too

which is the sad, sad truth of this poem)
is in, is on, your hands, not mine.
If you voted for Bush, then you have sent

a message, and thus, what he does
in your name, is done
in your name (your name).

In your name (a Bush Doctrine)
In your name (a Bush Plan)
In your name (a Bush Victory)

If you voted for Bush
then you have delivered
a mandate. Spread the word.