Operation Shutdown

(extracted from the Art for Dummies description of "the Raft of the Medusa")

the most compelling
       remarkable work
    gazed for hour after hour
looted from public opinion

the contemporary tragedy
    hints
of mutiny and cannibalism
when one
          survivor
waves frantically at the far, far distance

This is actually from months and months ago, but I'm just getting around to posting it now.  We did an exercise at a PTO meeting where we created a poem by extracting words from a randomly selected page of a book.  Mine was about the spectacle of the possibility of the federal government shutting down.  It seemed particularly appropriate, given the source material.