(With Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
To John and Rose, from us:
You ask us what have you done that we won't vote for thee?
Let us count the whys, just bear with me
You have gone along with Tony
To raid this town and people
To depths and breadths and heights
Our souls can only reach, when feeling out of sight
You two voted to give away Lincoln Park to the UT
And had Mark Sossi say the vote was only to "convey"
And planned to move the park next to a sewer plant
Where our kids and elderly folk could play
And ethical Rose, while hired by UT,
Discussed it and voted for it anyway
To pass Tony's deal and let it be
Now, after she raided the city budgets
For millions for her bikes and trails –
For health and joy for two or three –
She runs Sunday ads to raise taxes to patch potholes
And pay for frills like drainage and good streets
You two have let Martinez raid the treasury
To benefit his friends and chosen raza
An used millions of our money to buy their land
And handed him $2.3 million to buy the useless Casa
You have stood by and saw how he
Signed over half a lot of forfeited land, to himself,
Raised the value of his land and
Then sold it down the street, for a nice fee
And you pretended not to see...
To the ends of being and ideal grace.
You two have also abused us
To the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
And voted to hike the cost of our water and our light
For a Tenaska electric plant deal no one has ever seen...
And probably never will by day or night
We abhor this freely, as men strive for right.
We'll vote against thee purely, as they turn from praise.
We'll work against thee with the passion put to use
In our old griefs, and with our childhood’s faith.
We'll be against thee with a passion we have seemed to lose
With our lost saints. We're against thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all our lives; and, if God choose, and the you win,
We will be against thee, but – because of your past ways –
We'd rather see you lose, you see
(Ed.'s Note. Early voting continues today [Monday] and Tuesday at early voting sites. Election is Saturday at the voting precincts. Please vote.)