When the election was not convincing
When the litmus test is whether or not
he stole a donkey
When thunderstorms had to be brought in
When the words peace and slaughter
appear in the same sentence
When a physical king is installed to
separate us from the divine
When the ancient chads are hanging
When we need to be convinced again
Someone is on our side
When our candidates have not robbed us
or oppressed us
When we have to check our hands to
see if they’re still full
When the wheat calls to us to
rip it out of the ground
When the thunder is so frightening
we ask to not die
When we have done all the evil and
are still met with a heart
bigger than a holy land
Then, and only then will a human
occupy the palace
speak on our behalf
make the rain go away
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 22 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Beautiful Mistakes” (Rothco Press, May 2018) and edited the anthologies “A Poet’s Siddur: Shabbat Evening“, “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.
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