Fandango’s One Word Challenge today is lobby.

I write poetry when I address a topic that is difficult for me to write about or when I don’t have enough to say to write a decent piece of prose. In these instances, I write unrhymed poems of questionable quality. Like this one:

There’s a pro-gun lobby
An anti-choice lobby
Climate change denier lobby
So many negative lobbies!
There’s Hobby Lobby
and hotel lobby.
Where I live the lobby is called
The Loggia.

Where’s the lobby for
Universal health care,
Universal pre-K education,
Fresh water for all persons,
Solar panels on all new buildings,
An assault rifle ban with no expiry date,
The Green New Deal?
Why is it that lobbies
for good things never
seem to have the same influence
on politicians?

There should be a lobby
To cajole, persuade, advocate
for planting a garden
on every skyscraper,
for reduced rates for solar or wind energy
in every home,
for a national holiday
designated “National Arts Day,”
so people can go to museums,
paint a landscape,
practice an instrument,
or write a story.

There should be a lobby to lobby
for paying people to read
to workers in factories;
for giving out cookies
at every business meeting;
for making it a law that
every dog and cat,
and child
has a loving home,
for planting a tree for
every person in the world, and
for renaming all building lobbies
“loggias.”

The Loggia