[36 Found Poems on US Politics and Culture]
By Achirri Ismael
He goes to London.
Insults the Brits.
Draws a rebuke from the pm.
Becomes tabloid fodder.
But he doesn’t rest.
He goes next to the Middle
East.
Insults Palestinian “culture.”
Palestinians call him “racist.”
“Even our worst enemies
never say such things!”
Out of context, Team Mitt cries.
He wasn’t singling out Palestine.
Why, just the other day
he made the same point about Mexicans!
The hole gets deeper.
What next in Warsaw — a Polish joke?
And this is just the past few days.
When Mitt says:
“Corporations are people, my friend”
Or okays that he “retroactively resigned” from Bain,
the mind reels, the mouth comes up short.
What’s the right new word?
“Mitticism”?
That might be a serviceable noun,
but it feels quaint and obscure.
“Mittgaffe”?
It has a fun ring redolent of “McNugget,”
but it still misses. We’re talking
about a state of mind,
a way of thinking
(or not thinking),
that goes beyond any single misstep.
No, sometimes
only a punchier adjective will do.
So I propose “Mitticulous.”
Mitticulous means that what Mitt does
is thoroughly ridiculous,
yet in its own way very precise —
that is to say,
Romney is literally “meticulous”
in his inanity.
Insults Palestinian “culture.”
Palestinians call him “racist.”
“Even our worst enemies
never say such things!”
Out of context, Team Mitt cries.
He wasn’t singling out Palestine.
Why, just the other day
he made the same point about Mexicans!
The hole gets deeper.
What next in Warsaw — a Polish joke?
And this is just the past few days.
When Mitt says:
“Corporations are people, my friend”
Or okays that he “retroactively resigned” from Bain,
the mind reels, the mouth comes up short.
What’s the right new word?
“Mitticism”?
That might be a serviceable noun,
but it feels quaint and obscure.
“Mittgaffe”?
It has a fun ring redolent of “McNugget,”
but it still misses. We’re talking
about a state of mind,
a way of thinking
(or not thinking),
that goes beyond any single misstep.
No, sometimes
only a punchier adjective will do.
So I propose “Mitticulous.”
Mitticulous means that what Mitt does
is thoroughly ridiculous,
yet in its own way very precise —
that is to say,
Romney is literally “meticulous”
in his inanity.
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