American English uses the word button to refer to a small round metal badge, usually worn on a lapel, (near the button hole, I suppose), and that's the usage I'm blogging about today. I have a treasured collection in my 'man button box' though I rarely wear them anymore. (Well, you don't, do you?)
Some of my buttons denote musical allegiances (Beatles, Jefferson Airplane Loves You, Plummet Airlines, Small Faces); others are socio-political (CND, Don't Blame Me - I Voted Labour, Rock Against Racism); one or two have an amusing shock value (Fuck Often!, Nothing Sucks Like A Vax). My favourite, from student days, is a hairy Gnasher button (as in the Beano comic). It's got moving eyes.
With less than two weeks to go to the US presidential election, metal campaign buttons proclaiming allegiance to Biden or Trump are being stamped, distributed and worn as talismans in their millions. It's a practice that goes right back to the presidential campaign of 1896 when William McKinley's team had them mass-produced to publicise his candidacy. The campaign button is the catalyst for this week's new poem...
...and here it is, bright and shiny (?) from the imaginarium:
Hej!Your aides dished them out like glass beads to Indians.We wore them as favours on our threadbare coats,shiny with the promise of a better tomorrow. The price?Our votes. The cost to you, negligible groats. It's funnythat years down the line we still seem to be paying.Same coats, vanished hopes, more burden on our backsbecause Hej! you had the chance to do good for man,you know what I'm saying? We gave you our trustand you plain ripped us off. I keep that rusty tin buttonto remind me of the lesson. Your electoral process, wellit's a huge confidence trick and by wearing your colourswe helped delude others. I'll never be that complicit againand may you rot in hell, for all your misbegotten wealth.
That's all folks. Thanks for reading, S ;-)
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