In my repertoire of occasional poems, I have two suitable for reciting at debates or while watching election returns. The first is Ginsberg's Amerika. The second is Whitman's To the States (To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad), which I will reproduce here in its entirety.
Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight-scum floating atop of the waters,
Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots we all duly awake,
South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
Last time around, it was the "bats and night-dogs" that really got me. This time, it's the awakening.
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