The Democratic Game

Its Gothic Revival architecture redolent
of the past when monarchs reigned
and commoners did their bidding
remains a magnificent sight even as
the buildings comprising the limestone
exteriors have begun to slump wearily
with age and use, their wood-paneled
vaulted-ceilinged hallways creaking
with the memory of legislators long
gone to their graves. It is a Parliament
of the people for the people who elect
to public office those whose promises
resonate with the common folk even as
those pledges for reform and justice
are eventually recognized as the ruse
they were meant to be. As a smugly
vaunted Parliamentary Democracy a
whiff of monarchical aspirations seeps
through now and again -- a suspicion
based on the reality of legislation affecting
all with the exclusion of the legislators.
For they it is who in their aggregate can
be induced to comport themselves as a
force to reckon with that the ballot too
often supports in acquitted accountability.