The Mocking Bird - Michael Miley

A politician has moved into the neighborhood.

Last night, around 2am, he was up

calling loudly from his stump, trying on

different opinions to see how they’d fly

with the locals. We were not amused.

Master of imitations, but void of all substance,

his chatter was meant to impress us.

He’d picked up a line here, a phrase there,

and spouted his slogans in the local idiom, but all we heard

was a puffed up idiot running off at the mouth,

too impressed with his own pretenses 

to know he was off-key. 

We thought about buying a BB gun 

to shoot him off of his perch,

or to ruffle those ridiculous feathers on his head,

but at 2 am we found a better solution:

Brand new earplugs, with blockage enough for 30 decibels

of noise. Ahhh, indeed, silence is golden.

A couple of times in the night

my wife pulled hers out just to test: was he still there

nattering away? If a mocking bird is alone in the woods 

does he still keep pretending he’s someone else?

If a politician offends everyone within earshot

does he still keep spouting trash, just so he never

has to hear from his hearers what a consummate jerk he is?

He was. He does. And he does.

I guess we’ve got our answers.

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