(or how I learned to stop worrying and vote for fascists)
in the polling booth
I was in touch with a feeling of both privacy and primacy
that I could take my clothes off so to speak
commune directly with the powerful ones
to bless and/or to curse
that I was possessed of both mastery and integrity
my X
like a spark of gnosticism like a Roman coin
but suddenly I found myself under the humongous crush
of something more great more naked
the huge limbs and muscular tissue of the body politic
all-inclusive multi-coloured
street-drinkers traffic-wardens middle-aged men in lycra etc.
everyone I’d ever known blood brothers voodoo haters
everyone I’d ever met in a million awkward unsatisfying meetings
that yet left me with something of a good feeling hopefully them too
long-forgotten encounters lager-fuelled assemblies with people in foreign
geographies not to mention psychologies and economies
men in aprons talking of Zedekiah
daughters of Albion hunting like Maenads
politicians I’d actually seen in the flesh and imagined
spontaneously cudgelling before CCTV came in
poets and left-wingers I’d fallen out with just for the sake of it
the booth was like a beehive
a population-sized rugby scrum in which the agonised bodies
were elbowing kicking jostling kneeing one another
fighting for the magic marker one stroke of which
could change life change human society for the better
before long cheap corks were popping the lunacy became user-friendly
the competitive collaborative
the conservative so anarchist as if to simulate orgy
(it definitely reminded me of Dublin in the rare old etc.)
I was hungry but the only food was drugs
the situation autocorrected itself
with an invigilator’s cough
I was alone again or,
fully clothed,
sober,
hating wth a kind of religious mania
all the people I’d just partied with
so you know what?
I signed my X
in the fascist box
but when I tried crossing it out it looked bolder and bolder
anyway
it wasn’t a magic marker anymore
it was a pencil the same pencil
I’d always been suspicious of
that they could rub out with government rubbers if they wanted to
Niall McDevitt