After a career in the entertainment lighting business encompassing, sales, technical support, marketing, photography, and writing, I now manage and market veterinary hospitals.
Two of my poems are in a new collection from the UK edited by Finn Hall and published by A Blot from the Blue.
“Orange is Not a Colour: Poems against totalitarianism” is an anthology featuring poets from Scotland, Wales, England, France, Sweden, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Mexico, and the USA.
I’m humbled to have “The Clown Show” and “Coup d’état” included with so many great poems and poets.
We are now the Empire We were always the Empire to the rest of the world The ones dropping bombs from the stratosphere Or remotely piloting missiles through the windows of mud huts Destroying countries to save them But now we are at the sharp end of our own pointed stick We are the ones kicking down doors Bundling dissidents into unmarked vans And keeping secret prisons
At times it’s felt like half our society was predicated on protecting ourselves from tyranny Our culture wars ignited by the need to give our government pause Don’t tread on me because I bite back Allowing our children to die So we could arm ourselves for freedom
But then tyranny came in the middle of the night With a no-knock warrant, or no warrant at all, or to the wrong house, or after the bad guys had moved out “Everything would be okay as long as we just complied” How can we stand our ground when we have no ground to stand on
Or be shot with our hands in the air Or be shot lying on the ground Or be shot because of the color of our skin Or be shot because of a disability Or be shot because we think differently Or be shot with a pan of water in our hands Or be shot because we know our rights Or be shot because we are scared
Roll over, tickle our bellies, and play dead,
It’s just a few bad apples We were told But that’s the point The bad apples infect the rest of the barrel Turning the barrel rotten That’s how the analogy works
So when the tyrants want a secret police force They have one already on ICE With cooperation from what is an occupying army in all but name Living out their wet dream Power without accountability Buying the tacticool leftovers From our foreign adventures in tyranny When the only tool you have is a hammer Every issue looks like a nail
Where are all the resignations from those that are supposed to protect and serve?
Where are all the armed militia being necessary to the security of a free State?
Where are all the freedom loving zealots Living in fear of a time of government overreach?
They are cheering from the sidelines Because it was never about protecting and serving Just like it was never about protection from the government
Roll over, tickle our bellies, and play dead,
When does resistance become revolution? When we recognize the tyranny both without and within When we stop making movies about our men with guns That are outnumbered and outgunned By poor people whose land we have invaded and who live in mud huts When we stop watching TV shows about cops with hearts of gold who bend the rules to see that justice is served Bending the rules gets innocent people shot and convicted of crimes they did not commit
When does resistance become revolution? When we recognize that we have been in this mess for a while now That the want for change is real and anyone who offers it will find an audience Even a lunatic reality TV star
Roll over, tickle our bellies, and play dead, Or maybe, just maybe, We may bite.
This decaying house The largest on the block Once admired by all Now falling into disrepair Rotting from the inside out
What seemed like advantage An accident of location and resources A place for a grand experiment Is now seen as hubris and folly There are better houses now Even to those who live here
Clinging to fantasies of an age gone past When windows were clean and bright But cracked windows still let in the light And squeaking brittle doors still open and close Yet they can break at anytime And trap those within or without
To be made great again A house requires strong foundations Rights, not privileges that wax and wain With each new landlord Nobody boasts about freedom in this house anymore
The carpet smells of mildew And pipes all rattle and rust An infrastructure collapsing through a lack of understanding and care But sure, let’s cut the rent for the penthouse tenants When the only thing that trickles down is piss
The people across the hall were disappeared last night No longer welcome or protected See what complaining about the rats gets you The Super is just following orders he says But that did not work at Nuremberg And it shouldn’t work now
This house is a fire hazard A death trap waiting to happen Cold winds blow throughout And all the landlord cares about is the neighbors The neighbors who now laugh and pity us With a mixture of fear and disappointment
Nobody visits this house anymore They are warned to stay away And those with cards of green don’t dare leave Because privileges don’t apply with these landlords Or find yourself renditioned to a secret basement Somehow, somewhere
But from my tiny corner of this house I refuse to be quiet Even if it means losing my place I’m here to poke the bear With words and white middle-class privilege I stand on the right side of history And not just of this house
Is this really what we want? Is this really who we are? What we have become?
To dismiss
Diversity Equity And Inclusion
And turn it into a thought terminating cliche
Perfect for those who can’t spell D.E.I. Or understand that woke means awake
Although; “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” The definition of woke given by Ron DeSantis’ general council in a Florida court room, works pretty well for me too
Do we really want to call this a virus? Cancel culture, identity politics, left vs. right These are just distractions from what we don’t talk about From what we are supposed to be immune from
Class
It has always been about class It has always been about a return to serfdom The creation of caste system A technocratic feudalism
This is not rolling back the years This is the systematic dismantling of the idea of a dream Sure a dream sold and marketed fought over and clamored for But still a dream that most of us bought into
This does not end well Nazism never does
There is no Republican Party anymore There is just MAGA The Democrats are cowed and neutered Cloaking themselves in the flag and the next election
As our society burns down around them
Nobody is coming to save us
There is no heroic savior
Our culture has shaped us to believe that it takes someone extraordinary to affect change A hero, A prince or princess A chosen one That it takes special powers Training A unique past
But it doesn’t It takes people
People affect change People make resistances People overthrow dictators People make revolutions People decide what kind of society they want to live in
A coup To create an oligarchy Or more accurately A plutocracy To end a democracy Already on its way to Idiocracy
And institute feudalism With a side order of fascism On the back of our information We will be categorized and conditioned If we are not Gilead or imprisoned
All under the watch of the weak And the sex offenders The racists and the anti-transgenders
Our only hope That their stupidity and incompetence Is greater than their hate, their ignorance And weaker than our resistance
These has-beens With their learning machines And anti-vaccines Parading around in their limousines
Are not as strong as the blades of our guillotines.
You know how I know this is a giant Ponzi scheme? Because you are endorsing it Selling a future you don’t even believe in Trying to make other people feel stupid By pretending you are smart That you understand You are not that clever
If it does not make sense, guess what? It does not make sense To get in early, is to get out early Before the rubes realize there is no product Just the illusion of something for nothing You’ve taken a not too well thought out idea And turned it into a cesspit for grift
To make matters worse You add to climate change The energy requirements for mining crypto Are more than equal to solar power production And for what? A tool that lets you buy drugs on the dark web anonymously And since the FBI are now able to trace blockchains You suck at that too
Name all the arenas you want Misuse the internet famous and exploit their 15 minute adoring fans
It feels like the end of days It keeps feeling like the end of days I think about the meaning of life What if it has no meaning? No purpose, no greater goal
Enrico Fermi was a physicist who worked on the first atomic bomb In 1950 he asked the most obvious of questions “Where is everybody?” If there are billions of stars, some much older than ours Where are all the ancient spacefaring civilizations? Why are we alone?
Astronomer David Brin postulated a solution to the Fermi Paradox in 1983 The deadly probes hypothesis – more commonly known as the dark forest theorem That the universe is a dark forest full of dangers and dangerous hunters To make oneself know in the forest by crying out Is to make oneself vulnerable to those dangers Game theory suggests in this situation it is best to shoot first and ask questions later And to not cry out
As bleak as this theorem is There is something worse That all civilizations follow a similar path That they mine their ecosystems for industrialization For the fuel of technological growth That they create weapons of mass destruction to protect themselves from those they disagree with That they value their short-term economic goals Over the environment they live in
And therefore, they destroy themselves
That life just doesn’t get to create the stuff of science fiction The road to industrialization Is the road to self-destruction That life never really survives the industrial revolution
As author, Bill Bryson says “Life, in short, just wants to be. But, …it does not want to be much”
Except we had to have agriculture We had to have industry We had to have a Cybertruck on Mars
There is a strong argument that plants domesticated us Not the other way round Bending us to their will Shaping our society to their needs Put a monkey on a treadmill and they will jump off But not us We keep going Chasing a fantasy Chasing a science fiction
If we have the capability and knowledge to colonize Mars We have the capability and knowledge to save Earth And as much as it grieves me to say it My visions of spacefaring into the future Are destined to remain fictions of science We are going nowhere The problems too great The benefits too few Too many hard steps To the step to colonize Mars or anywhere else Too many steps to a Cybertruck on Mars Let’s face it It’s too many steps to a working Cybertruck on Earth
Space won’t save us anytime soon And the universe is telling us something
It is telling us to stop.
Image unashamedly stolen from the Tesla website and used under fair use for criticism, comment, or news reporting.
The killing of a multi-millionaire CEO Rich on the back of claim denial How appropriate for American change to come from the barrel of a gun Rather than the killing of classrooms of children
The 1% of the 1% begged for forgiveness A realization that their oligarchy came from exploitation That the game was rigged in their favor And so we should all just stop playing The misery of the majority Fed on dreams of avarice While choking on propaganda and lies Of the American nightmare they dreamt of
So in fear of a tale of two cities Health care became universal The homeless housed through basic income Politics meant service rather than riches The soldiers laid down their weapons No longer the servants of hegemony The police upheld the law rather than enforced it A right to not get shot Rather than a right to shoot Renewables given the subsidies of the polluters Food became free of pesticides and price gouging Public transportation replaced road building
Power accountable to the powerless
A country for the people and of the people Became more than words of control The billionaires became millionaires Paying their fair share of taxes For the benefit of all
A bloodless revolution in how we all chose to live Started through the spilling of blood
The clown show has come to town While the bankers watch their children drown Led by a cruel and weak fool Unaware that he is being used as a tool Each clown has a singular trait With lies to flatter and obfuscate While the majority welcome this vacuous parade The different and marginalized look on afraid
If the clowns are not fed and suffer They will feed on each other A clown knows no loyalty Even to royalty Kings that are made Are just facilitating the charade
And the clowns like the cacophony With pretensions to theocracy They are singularly ill-suited For the what they have instituted And nobody is laughing At what the clowns are choreographing We are all just trying to hunker down When the clown show comes to town.
Word Outlet 