A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI
I. The Grandstanding Meter (Main Poem)
The gavel strikes. The lights ignite.
The Grandstanding Meter blinks to life.
It does not hum for votes or laws,
But speeches given with noble pause.
It measures tone. It measures stance.
It tracks the glare, the shrug, the glance.
It does not care if bills succeed—
It runs on posture, not on need.
The gavel strikes. The lights ignite.
Stand Level One: Ceremonial Light.
Charts are shown. Heads slowly nod.
Footnotes bless the fiscal fraud.
The gavel strikes. The lights ignite.
Stand Level Two: Principled and Polite.
History invoked. Fathers named.
Complex issues neatly framed.
The gavel strikes. The lights ignite.
Stand Level Three: Defiant Right.
Lines are drawn in moral sand.
Each side claims the higher land.
Amendments bloom like weeds in spring—
Each fixes nothing, blocks the thing.
Committees meet to plan the plan
To later plan what no one ran.
The gavel strikes. The lights ignite.
Stand Level Four: Deadline Night.
The clock looks pale. The markets cough.
Experts argue, then sign off.
“We’re close,” they say. “Very near.”
The Meter spikes. The path is clear—
Not to progress, not to resolve,
But to a speech about resolve.
Staffers whisper. Pizza’s cold.
The bill grows thick. Unread. Unold.
A thousand pages, stitched at speed,
To meet the hour, not meet the need.
The gavel strikes. The lights ignite.
Stand Level Five: Historic Night.
At 2:03 a deal appears,
Forged of haste and mutual fears.
Unread, unnamed, but loudly praised,
A triumph measured, hands are raised.
Each side wins. Each side’s right.
The Meter drops. The tone is light.
The gavel rests. The lights go dim.
The Meter sleeps—but not for long.
It idles low, a faithful hymn,
Prepared to hum when next called on.
For soon enough, with solemn face,
Another stand will take its place.
And once again, with practiced grace,
They’ll stand their ground…
in the same space.
Coda:
Nothing in Congress moves faster
than a stand taken perfectly still.
And nothing is measured more precisely
than motion avoided—
with conviction.
II. The Kids Version
(The Little Meter That Couldn’t)
Once upon a hearing, in a building very grand,
Lived a Little Meter built to measure how they’d stand.
It didn’t count solutions. It didn’t track results.
It measured noble speeches and ceremonial halts.
“I think I can!” it beeped one day. “I think I’ll help them move!”
A senator stood proudly tall. “I must object—on principle.”
The Meter blinked. It climbed a bit.
The speeches grew. The smiles fit.
They shook their heads. They shook their fists.
They shook hands only off the list.
“I think I can! I think I can!”
The Meter tried its very best.
But every stand replaced a step,
And standing still became the test.
By bedtime, bills were tucked away,
Unpassed, but bravely fought.
The Little Meter dimmed its light—
Progress measured: thought.
Now every year the children ask,
“Will it help them move someday?”
The Meter hums, “I think I might…
After recess. Or delay.”
Moral:
Standing is easy. Walking is harder.
Running requires reading the bill.
III. The Shakespeare Version)
(Much Ado About Standing)
Behold the stand, so firm, so loudly sworn,
Where feet take root yet minds refuse to roam.
Each oath proclaims the other side misborn,
While progress waits outside the marble dome.
The clock doth plead, the markets groan with dread,
Yet speeches bloom where actions dare not tread.
What valor!—to remain exactly here,
Unmoved by facts, but moved by public cheer.
At midnight’s hour, when cameras softly sleep,
A bargain crawls from shadowed conference room.
Unread, unsigned by thought, but passed to keep
The fiction that tomorrow’s less of doom.
Thus stands the stand—magnificent, complete:
All postured up, with nowhere left to meet.
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