“Spell” by Brian Rutenberg
teach the tenets
embraced by crass cynics
use verses informed
and inflamed by
a hot jaded rhetoric
fine propaganda
unmetered and plangent
that plays upon ears
who have eyes for
the deft turn of phrase
and fat fingers
who hunger
for comfort food
word meals with
taste that affirms
what the reader
already believes
of the social philosophies
climbing the populist
foothills of culture
conventional wisdom
produces no more than
pedestrian poetry
From my book Pieces of Wine
Poesy plus Polemics 