20150807 (Republican debate)

The handmade sign I carried outside the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball stadium for the
preliminary debate of the Republican party debates for the presidential nomination.

It took me forty-five minutes

To walk to E4th and Huron

To the Cleveland Cavaliers

Basketball stadium I refuse to call

It by that letter between P and R

Which is somebody’s advertising

They paid for naming rights and get 

To write off their corporate taxes as a

Business expense advertising carrying

The sign I made last night and this 

Morning forty inches wide and 

Thirty-two inches high of white

Artist’s foamboard two bolts two

Wingnuts two washers and a stick

Which formerly braced the back 

Of a punched plastic card rack display

Forty-eight inches long tall 

So the sign would project 

Above my head making it noticeable

Among all the other signs which

I expected to encounter

Had the wind not been so strong 

Pleasantly powerful for a clear day

I might have gotten there sooner

The sign was a sail and I’m not sure 

Whether it helped or hindered

I’d laid out the format for nine-inch

Tall letters on both sides to maximize

Messaging this would be a silent affair

The noisy demonstrators were already

There screaming their chant rant cant 

Walking in front of them sign held high

Cameras telephones followed

Only a couple of people asked me to explain 

The Poor The War The World

One was a personable young man who 

Wanted to tell me all political systems

Are secretly working together to enslave us

I informed him I thought he should try changing

The channel occasionally it’s ok we disagree

Cause I love you anyway and I you

I responded one very Republican looking 

Guy in a suit came by from behind to 

Inform me my shorts were wrinkled

Many stopped me to say I like your sign

But didn’t clarify whether it was 

The typography or the politics

Passed tent after tent of cable personalities

Under bright lights holding forth for the cameras

Their opinions I ventured as flimsy as the tents

I was hoping for media to ask me to explain

Had they asked I would have said

These are the topics the declared won’t discuss

These are the subjects media ought to be probing

I’ll give you a dollar any time any one of these

Maniacs even mentions the poor the war the world

Meaning all the disastrous climate change

I won’t part with five bucks for the night 

That’s what I would have said

Regrettably they let me stay silent

It took me an hour to get home

The wind was still strong the sunset magnificent 

Demonstrating from five-thirty to eight-thirty

Took a toll on my knees feet 

And head

c. J.S.Manista, 2015