After a career in the entertainment lighting business encompassing, sales, technical support, marketing, photography, and writing, I now manage and market veterinary hospitals.
Quiet Piggy Yes, I’m talking to you The one who won’t shut up With the bile and the lies
Quiet Piggy Seditious behavior? Well you would know
Quiet Piggy Hanging your political opponents? Be careful what you wish for
Quiet Piggy Nixon only survived because he resigned in disgrace I see little grace in your façade Louis the 16th, Charles the 1st, and Tsar Nicolas the 2nd will be waiting for you
Quiet Piggy Your affairs with those who seek power for sex You and your friends who use sex on the powerless Dom Mistress Melania will not be pleased if she gives a shit – or some piss
Quiet Piggy Blowing Bubba with photos from Uncle Putin Not quite the Russian interference we were thinking of Maybe we’ll get that golden shower video after all – if we can stomach it
Quiet Piggy You can dish it out, but like all tacos You always crumple like a cheap suited con man
Quiet Piggy A national secret police force to terrorize a nation Just remember who stood in the dock at Nuremberg And who couldn’t
Quiet Piggy Your words will become the bludgeons of oppressed peoples Not to be forgiven, not to be forgotten, but to be used as weapons of resistance
Quiet Piggy The grownups are deciding your fate.
Image: “The Martydom of Louis XVI, King of France — I forgive my enemies, I die innocent!!!”, etching by Isaac Cruikshank, February 1, 1793
Said the beautiful girl across from me Postface to our discussion of politics, artificial intelligence, books, and the state of the world But who had not yet mentioned a boyfriend With both of us away from home remaining unsaid
We live in the future and the future sucks A future none of us asked for The evidence is all around This backwater town We find ourselves in As exhibit A
The dead businesses and dying streets The remains of chain stores that just can’t make it work A place where there is no future But the people still believe in the dream
Spoon-fed illusions of flags and evermore meaningless phrases used to sell things we don’t need In the name of being a good citizen, a good consumer But it is the same nightmare that traps and eviscerates them That traps and eviscerates us Not quite such a stranger in this stranger land
A view of the world through glasses of red, white, and blue And of being the best because that’s all we’ve ever been told A freedom that imprisons its adherents Who have a vision of how things should be and yet weald tools of abhorrence
Unless you are the other The lies have a seductive sweetness Like overt flattery to get you into bed But I’m a big city liberal, even if those labels don’t work for my brand of social deconstruction
These are not villains Not even victims They are the ones who believe The ones who’s attention is stolen Like land Labor And capital before it
Those who put their trust in oligarchs and plutocrats
Who are we to judge them for finding the face of God In the rapture of evangelical nonsense Not selling souls But giving them away to make lives a little easier Like liquidating possessions with blind faith To open heavens gates a little wider
While those same oligarchs and plutocrats Are searching for the face of God In machine learning snake oil The new gods of Super Artificial Intelligence With trillions for those first past the post God code in their pocket The only price The enshitification of the world One water and power guzzling data center At a time
What does the future of the future hold As serfs of technofudalism Sharecropping in a dopamine fueled A.I. slop hellscape? A world of abundant productivity Yet without labor to sell We become congregants in the cult of abundance Without income Therefore, no tax No representation without taxation It works both ways everyone Just ask the Saudis
Thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind As they say on the plains of Arrakis We have forgotten the lessons of John Henry A man famous through song for dying battling a machine Although more likely A man exploited A man of color A man in prison A man who became the model for Superman and Captain America The models for modern American Gods
We are unable to make peace with God Never mind the devil The continued anthropomorphizing of technology Without sympathy or empathy for people Blame determinism and move on As adults die in mass shootings in churches While their children survive Because they’ve been trained since kindergarten to run, hide, or fight
What happened to the world? It’s like I’m on normal speed and Everyone else is skipping the beat Listening to a different song
“Goodnight,” she said with a hug “We are all fucked” And I went to my hotel room alone.
Don’t get involved in politics Say the recipients of unrealized privilege Don’t argue and have a good life The world is a joke and learn how to laugh say those who look and behave towards the mean 1 + 1 = 5
47 did something I approved of for once Calling the Department of Defense The Department of War Because that is what it is We defend jack shit But boy, We sure do like invading places And involving ourselves in the wars of other peoples Since 1945, too numerous to mention I know this because I was going to list them all But lists make for a poor excuse for poetry
But maybe we can be just as honest about all our institutions
The Department of Corporate Corruption The Central Insurgency Agency The Federal Bureau of Imprisonment The Department of Hypocrisy and Human Suffering The National Spying Agency The Bought and Paid for Court
Will this be known as The Age of Cruelty?
If there is anyone left to think and feel
To see through the copaganda And to rage against the regime
In the same week as more mass shootings, bomb threats, Legal backing for racial profiling, And a political podcaster reaping what they sowed There is the horror of a movie about 50 young men Volunteering to walk or be shot In an America without hope Based on a book that horrified me when I was 13
Yet it Is tame compared to being a school kid in America today
Or watching the political violence On the bleeding edge of tipping us into war
Hey, now we have a department for that
I always dismissed most dystopian fiction I believed the line “So this is how democracy dies – with thunderous applause” Never believed that it would be like watching a slow-motion car crash The majority feeling impotent to affect change A piece of flotsam on troubled waters
It is not enough to call it unacceptable It is not enough to say that it is a distraction And protesting…
If congress and the courts can’t protect us Then what are they for Why do we pay for them, Their health insurance Their pensions
We are not a rogue state We are a failed state A police state A disunited state
Police and governments who can’t tell the difference between anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, and people protesting genocide
I will never forgive the Democrats for making me agree with Marjorie Taylor Fucking Greene
I saw a post with a soldier saying we should have faith and trust our troops As they patrol our streets with guns Ready to backup a secret police force as it disappears people One underclass at a time Every Military Junta says to trust them at the start
To a people without hope In an age of cruelty.
Image by James Ensor, Death Chasing the Flock of Mortals, 1896
Change It starts with a change An aberration straying from the norm Unexpected, yet foreseeable Once one removes the patriotic blinders The exceptionalism myth Taught in school to glaze over the slavery, genocide , and empire building It can happen here It can happen to us
(Fold)
And then the question becomes What if we want to undo that change? It’s simple right? Reclaim our rose tinted view of the world? Putting renewed faith in the institutions that failed us The definition of madness Doing the same nonsense again And again
(Unfold)
But the marks are still there The history of abusing the things we are supposed to hold most dear The betrayal of shared values A fracturing of belonging And these things can now happen again Because the taboos have been broken
(Refold)
And now there is a road map of fault lines Well traveled and now a playbook Much easier for one more step One more outrage That is ignored Or accepted
(Fold)
And to slide
(Fold)
An inexorable slippage into what we have always said we despised
(Fold)
And the realization
(Fold)
That this is what we are Smaller, less important To ourselves And to others Fallible And not in a position to lecture anyone
(Unfold)
Because the scars of what we have done to ourselves are not going away It will never be the same again And maybe we should just…
I just don’t understand where I’m from any more I don’t recognize the place I used to call home Even looking through the lens of an adopted home Dissent and all All the way to dissident
But I’m now adrift From what is a different kind of authoritarian nightmare
One that removed the right to silence in the name crime and punishment One that broke from Europe in the name of an empire of old One that watches every street corner in the name of public safety One that suppresses free speech in the name of genocide One that legalized cruelty to trans people in the name of protecting women One that broke the internet in name of the safety of children One that waves the flag of little England and pickets the hotels of refugees One that sends people to jail for a tweet or a Facebook post
What have you become How dare you
It’s an authoritarian world It would seem We just have to live in it.
Mr. Pig had taken ownership of the farm The Farm had some problems Not least the legacy of the 46 former owners And Mr. Pig was determined to fix the problems his way “I’m going to make this farm great again” said Mr. Pig
The sheep looked on concerned They knew something of Mr. Pig And most of them did not like what they had seen But there were also sheep who thought the world of Mr. Pig “King Pig” they called him “He’ll make us great again and punish those who need punished” they continued Who needed punished exactly they could not quite agree on
Now the Farm used wolves to control the sheep It also used them to protect against wolves from other farms and wolves from the forest Mr. Pig secretly wanted to be a wolf, so he gave them whatever they wanted He removed their leashes He removed their collars He bought them whatever they wanted paid for with the wool of the sheep
The majority of the sheep bleated in complaint “What are you doing? We did not want this, We have rights” Mr. Pig just laughed “I make the rules, and this is for your own safety”
With every change on the Farm, most of the sheep bleated in complaint Mr. Pig tied red bandanas on the most loyal of sheep To let the wolves know which ones were his supporters “Don’t be difficult, don’t argue” said the sheep with red bandannas “Mr. Pig is going to bring us the good life, learn to take a joke”
Every night the sheep could hear the wolves Not just patrolling the fence line But inside their pen The wolves no longer talked to the sheep And had started to wear masks The sheep could no longer tell one wolf from another When morning came one of the sheep would be missing Usually a brown or black one And the wolves would be a little fatter
“We are better than the sheep” sang the wolves “The Wolves are making the farm great again, Long live Mr. Pig, We tow the thin red line”
Mr. Pig made money by selling the sheep’s wool But Mr. Pig wanted more He was a pig after all “I have a biggly new place for some of you to live” said Mr. Pig to the sheep “Where you will be safe and secure and most importantly with your own kind”
The brown and black sheep were herded onto trucks by the wolves And they were never seen again by the remaining sheep “Where are our brown and black friends?” said some of the remaining sheep, usually the ones without red bandannas “They are living their best lives” said Mr. Pig looking at his brand-new gold watch
Soon it was the rainbow-colored sheep who were rounded up and loaded onto trucks “There is no place for your type here” said Mr. Pig The sheep, knowing that complaining to Mr. Pig would make no difference, complained to each other “When will this stop?” “It could happen to us!” “It couldn’t happen to us” said the sheep with red bandannas “We trust Mr. Pig” But they looked a little nervous to the other sheep
The herd of sheep grew ever smaller and smaller As Mr. Pig and the wolves grew fatter and fatter The wolves had grown so fat that they no longer listened to Mr. Pig They knew he lied Only cared about money And he was just a pig after all
When the last truck full of sheep left for the slaughterhouse The sheep bleated “How could you do this to us Mr. Pig, we loved you” Their red bandannas offsetting their snow-white coats Mr. Pig replied “This is just the art of the deal and you are just sheep after all”
Mr. Pig gazed out over his orderly empty farm “My farm is finally great” he said Spotting some remaining sheep shit he told his wolves to take care of it But wolves don’t eat shit at the best of times And they no longer had sheep to eat The farm did not seem great to them So they pounced on Mr. Pig and ate him alive For while the wolves liked mutton they also liked ham And they were wolves after all
After trying on Mr. Pigs clothes and deciding they were not for wolves They melted away into the forest leaving the farm abandoned, decaying, and rotting The legacy of Mr. Pig
My new collection of poetry, Unreliable Narrator, is now available for sale from Avantpop Books.
From the book jacket:
"Commentary is inherently untrustworthy. By definition, it is one person’s view shared with others. Our self-narration of our personal lives, of our thoughts and beliefs, our very world is a one-sided affair. How reliable a narrator can we be of ourselves and how we view the world? Should we accept the inherent unreliability of our daily lives in what we are told, in what we read, and in what we watch?
In this third volume of poetry from Las Vegas poet Mike Falconer, we explore the writer’s views of politics, historical events, his personal life, and the place he calls home as an unreliable narrator. Whether he is to be trusted is up to you."
“Commentary is inherently untrustworthy. By definition, it is one person’s view shared with others. Our self-narration of our personal lives, of our thoughts and beliefs, our very world is a one-sided affair. How reliable a narrator can we be of ourselves and how we view the world? Should we accept the inherent unreliability of our daily lives in what we are told, in what we read, and in what we watch?
In this third volume of poetry from Las Vegas poet Mike Falconer, we explore the writer’s views of politics, historical events, his personal life, and the place he calls home as an unreliable narrator.
We are the death cult The victims of history Never again Turned into never against us But not, never by us Drunk on our power Paid for by Americans with no healthcare
We are the death cult Genocide an instrument of statecraft Avoidance of prosecution for corruption And of course crimes against humanity But for what do we care about international law Here in the killing fields of the stateless
We are the death cult Using the West’s own hand wringing Against themselves They would rather go blind Than be reminded of turning an blind eye eighty years ago The tail that wags the dog
We are the death cult Absolutists till the day we die There is so middle ground Just our ground Gifted by god, history, and the racism of others That dovetails with the racism of our own apartheid
We are the death cult Making the most powerful nation on earth our bitch Our client state War and politics as a zero sum game Bombs in personal devices Poisoning rice with opiates Killing the hungry Annihilating the dispossessed
We are the death cult And if you have not realized yet we don’t care We are Samson We will pull the temple down around us all Dancing on the tightrope of World War Three The arbiters of the language of mass murder Destroying all criticism by proxy For what do we care about racism As long as you support our nationalism
Word Outlet 