By Teddy Robertson
And what of good government?
the ancients supplied its taxonomy
civic virtue and democracy
the health of the body politic
phrases from the past like periwigs and togas
I loved them more than I knew
back in that time of respected opinions and endorsements,
canceled subscriptions and social media switches
initial shock and outrage,
I feared censorship and isolation
now the newspaper of record displays riches
that disgust
power
that does not awe—
once prized column inches of
trivia prove sufficient to gag me,
a citizen
once well-informed
I miss the nation’s homage to clichés about its past
skewed stories of uniqueness and destiny
barely concealing murderous expansion and greed
the vaunted idealism now faint
yet the values American
naive and optimistic
I miss too the rhetoric of reform and redress
the routines of ordinary patriotism
when hypocrisy still left room for protest and satire,
venality and virtue in their uneasy human balance—
we calibrated our compromises
the very stuff of politics and democracy
I remember you
This poem also appears in East Village Magazine’s August 2025 Issue.
