How Coyote Stole the Election...

I knew the Trickster had to have a paw in it...

--ryan


Coyote Steals the 2000 Presidential Election

by JIM COHN





COYOTE IN PALM BEACH

Coyote stared at the bubbles
rising from his martini.
He started walking on a
trail from there

until he walked into
the polling station,
thinking it was
a whorehouse.

Suddenly in need of a toilet,
he entered a voting booth,
pulled down his pants,
and did his business.

Coyote burned a stick of incense
made from a piece of old shoelace,
thinking it would hide the stink.

Many ballots became soiled
by Coyote wiping his shit
over everything.

The voting officials became furious.
Soon, angry mobs stormed
the election headquarters.

Outside, Coyote took off
his asshole & threw it down
the sewer to clean it off.

When his asshole floated away
He chased it all the way
to the sea.



COYOTE STOPS THE RECOUNT

Chased by party bigwigs,
cops & extremists,
Coyote seduced a woman
he'd seen on tv.

With his picture flashed
across the state of Florida
Coyote looked good in lipstick
& a tight red dress.

One fat cat politico
shoved a piece of paper
into his hand & said
read this.

Still hungover, Coyote
said, "I have deliberated
carefully & made my decision
not to certify any hand recounts."



COYOTE ON THE ROAD TO TALLAHASSEE

Tired of garbage
he was eating out
of a Miami dumpster
behind the mayor's office

Coyote headed north--
a long, slim, & sorry
looking skeleton--
following the orange
groves to Tallahassee.

While the driver
of the yellow rental truck
was taking a piss at a rest area
he hijacked the uncounted votes
from the 2000 presidential election.

No helicopter tv camera
hovering overhead saw him
suck himself until he came,
until he finished with himself.

"No one will ever
make me their news,"
said Coyote.



COYOTE IN THE U.S. SUPREME COURT


Coyote stumbled into the
U.S. Supreme Court
thinking it was a
discount liquor store.

While the chief justice
was reading through
the next case
Coyote stole his robe.

When his right arm saw
his left arm sticking out
of the robe one turned
upon the other.

Before long his arms
were cut & bleeding from
their vicious fight.

"Why have I done this?"
asked Coyote to himself.
"Why have I made
myself suffer?"



COYOTE FALLS ASLEEP ON THE BENCH

Coyote fell asleep on the bench
as Mr. Tribe asked Justice Kennedy
"Why tell people the count
if you won't count it? . . .

that truly would be a promise
to the ear to be broken by hope."

In Coyote's dream he had
come upon the carcass of
the chief of the eagles
& was eating its guts.

He farted so loud he woke himself.
"Everything's too easy," he shouted,

thinking he was at the conference
where it is decided when the
seasons should take place.

Pretty soon Coyote felt
a cold chill go through his head.
Then he touched his head.

"Oh," said Coyote, "it's my own
brains I've been eating."



COYOTE IN LEON COUNTY

"A voter in a county where a
manual count was conducted
would benefit from having a
better chance of having his or her
vote counted than a voter in a county
where a hand count was halted."

--Judge Sanders Sauls
[rejecting a recount vote]

Coyote was feeling lucky.
He had just met a hooker &
no sooner had he made her
than she was pregnant.

He jumped on the hooker's stomach
until the child came to life.
"Now he's dead," said Coyote.
"Where shall we bury him?"

He took him to the place
where the gravestones move
around.

This place was next to a basketball court.
It was a winter's day & rattlesnakes
lay coiled in the sun.

Putting dirt on his face,
Coyote acted like a
crazy man.



COYOTE DISCOVERS RAT'S MARKED DECK OF
CARDS MADE FROM SEMINOLE COUNTY
ABSENTEE BALLOTS APPLICATIONS

Coyote rolled his eyes down
the street & around the corner.
Sure enough, there was Rat
running off to a card game.

Where his eyes had been
he put two shiny cockroaches.
It is on account of things like this
that people call him "foolish one."

Blindly he stumbled onto a road.
Immediately, he was flattened
by a motorcade.

Lying on his back when he came to,
Coyote smelled fresh plums.
He tied his scattered bones together &
went off to find the trees they belonged to.

When he leapt for the plums
he landed in a trash can
where Rat was bragging
about his winnings.

Laughing, he gave Coyote two plums
which he devoured, never knowing
they were his eyes.

"If toward evening," said Rat to Coyote,
you see the sky red, you will know
it is the plums causing it."

After that Coyote went to a hill
that was not far off.


THE DEATH SPIRIT VISITS COYOTE IN BUSH V. GORE

Coyote sat there listening to voices
inside the Supreme Court making
their decision in Bush v. Gore.

"Why are you crying?"
asked the death spirit to Coyote.
"When Mr. Klock called to the dead
justice sitting on the bench," said Coyote,

"he was seeing my wife who long ago
became like a shadow
on an overcast day."

"You were about to establish the practice
of returning the people from death,"
said the ghost.

"Now it won't happen.
You made it this way."

Coyote decided to retrace his steps
to shadowland, but he never
found his way there again.

All night he walked around the tents
pitched outside the courthouse,
but in the morning, he heard
only the sparrows.



COYOTE ADDRESSES HIS EXCREMENT

The men called Coyote over.
"Coyote," they said,
"you are the biggest liar
we've ever known."

"You are very good at it."
"Teach us so we can be successful too."

"I had to pay a price for my power."
"What did you pay?" they asked.

"I had to remove one of my legs,
tie it to my back, then jump back
& forth across this ravine."

Right away each man removed a leg,
tied it to his back, approached the
ravine, stumbled, & then fell
to the bottom.

The fall killed the men & they
floated down the river.

After a while, Coyote took a big shit,
then turned around to speak
to his excrement--

"What's happened?"
"How did I get here?"

"Up there someone powerful killed you,"
the excrement said.

Coyote went on his way.



© 2000 Jim Cohn

Jim Cohn's books & Recordings include: Prairie Falcon; The Dance of Yellow Lightning Over the Ridge (poems); Sign Mind (Studies in American Sign Language Poetics); The Road; Unspoken Words (CDs). He is also the Director of
the Museum of American Poetics.