an answer to Larry Summers’ editorial wish of holding a center, now gone
pundits think in number lines
with a centering pivot point like zero
(is that the “he who believes in nothing” sort of zero?)
(all too close to the truth sometimes)
pundits see ideologies
running off in increments
to the right and to the left
and assume some force
of ideological gravity
must inevitably one day draw
the ghosts of masses past, now memory,
back, to rally the banners of the last generation’s
now bleached and tattered ideals
the whisperers of the former world
don’t see the real shape of politics at all,
the line they think they see
must curve back and around upon itself
and right extremes and left extremes
must meet and overlap
at the same perspective:
“destroy the old ways”
as they look now across a verge
to the once-was, to lessons learned from scratch again,
to the lesson that must painfully always be learned again,
that the center migrates
the masses only want a sense
of safety in a crowd
milquetoast punditry cannot rally passion
or kindle hope in the ruins of our once
glimmering, post-war
prosperity
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