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Politics Last Summer

The pederasts were pederasting,
The sycophants were sycophanting
and Washington was awash in the slime of politics

when suddenly the three wise monkeys
burst into the committee room
beating on drums and demanding

an end to the teaching of Darwinism or any
theory that related them, even distantly,
to such a debauched creature as man.

Meanwhile, the homeless were trying
to form a union so each of them
could have a pot and a window.
Can you imagine the gall? A pot and a window!

Richard Shelton was born in Boise, Idaho, in 1933. Shelton was raised in poverty and took solace in reading. He attended Harding College in Arkansas before transferring to Abilene Christian College in Texas, where he earned a BA in English. Shelton next joined the U.S. Army and was stationed at Fort Huachuca, but was discharged from service in 1958. He went on to study for a PhD in English at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He never completed his dissertation on Elizabethan literature, thus concluding his studies with a master’s degree.

About Richard Shelton

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In Search of History

We go in search of history and find
a guillotine at a garage sale where the lady
of the house in curlers and stretch pants
sits in a lawn chair knitting, knitting.

The guillotine is ugly but has historic
value, we say, and take it home
to replace the wagon wheel in the yard,
but we can’t get the damned thing to work.

Nobody told us the lubricant of history
is blood. We thought it was money.
Is Grandma’s pickle crock historical?
How much is it worth? Could we convert

Richard Shelton

2007

The Little Towns of West Texas

know all the roads go somewhere else
and never come back. They know
Heaven is directly above them
and from it comes great suffering.
In their fierce localities they suffer
without complaint. They believe
in their names and in the Holy Ghost
whose tongues of fire surround them.

Richard Shelton

2007

It Is Raining

and a line of light is just beginning
to open the lid of the horizon.

Somebody leans out an upstairs window
and shouts, “Thanks for the beer.
Write when you get work.” A car
coughs, starts, moves down the street
avoiding the deeper puddles
stippled with rain. It passes a dog
in a doorway, his tail curled
carefully around his delicate feet.

It is raining in Coblenz and in Buda
and in Pest. It is raining
on the top and bottom of the world.

Richard Shelton

2007

Poems

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Politics Last Summer

More by this poet

In Search of History

The Little Towns of West Texas

It Is Raining

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