What to do with a presidential name?
Observe, and one will see where they belong.
Oppression drives families apart—
Desperation becomes an identity—Okie dokey—
Yet few do much to balance the playing field.
Gargantuan Capitalist desert dust
Unequivocably formed this national monument.
To hell with wealth and greed,
Hardship falls harder on the have-nots.
Revolution, though, has its costs.
In the end, a wandering singing prophet is an
Excellent target for corporal confinement.
© 2026 Tristan Robert Lange. All rights reserved.
First published on tristanrobertlange.com, September 6, 2026.
Tittu
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Author:
Tristan Robert Lange (
Online) - Published: September 6th, 2026 07:40
- Comment from author about the poem: An acrostic Scorched Sunday poem. Part of my Scorched Strays collection. This poem draws inspiration from a wandering singer whose music gave voice to workers, migrants, and the dispossessed. It considers the forces that forged a national monument—and the cost of becoming one.
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 3
- Users favorite of this poem: sorenbarrett
- In collections: Scorched Strays.
Online)
Comments2
There’s a damn clever hidden structure here—the opening question about a “presidential name” leads into oppression, Okies, capitalism, hardship, revolution, and finally the wandering singing prophet, which strongly evokes Woody Guthrie without ever simply naming him. The acrostic is the real knife: the opening letters spell O D Y E G T R E, while the oddly deliberate wording and historical imagery make the poem feel like a coded little monument to the Dust Bowl, Guthrie, and the American class struggle.
A wandering genius of song and social reform a modern bard and prophet rejected like all in the past. A lovely write my friend and all the more applicable today.
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