Oh, the big voice is gone forever.
All we have left is the so long line
that he filled up with himself, always
telling us more than we wanted to know.
Every polity wraps itself in lies, exaggerations
stitching the social fabric,
and Walt
was one of our biggest liars, always
puffing us up.
You see now though how thin
it was—democracy.
There’s so little of it left.
Charles Tarlton has a Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles and lives now in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. His work has been seen in Rattle, Blackbox Manifold (UK), London Grip (UK), Illanot Review (Israel), and 2River.