the spectre of unnoticed absence

the relief that our left bank colonial flank
is safe in the reassuring arms
of "Centrist Neoliberalism"
echoes like the quaking knell
still hemorrhaging
for our substance-less "Democracy".

it washes up in trending waves,
raising the death-rattle spectre
of Jacob Marley's chains,
resounding with the reflectionless ring
of emotional appeals,
like the congregational tide of shocked indignation
which is itself,
in its with-us-or-against-us
relentless resistance
(to undoctored history),
and blithe indifference
to the dauntless dearth of choice,
the very essence
of the unnoticed absence.

this haunting is made complete
with the myopic visitation
of Fascist unwanted posters
summoned by the unholy communion
of donkeys, profiteers, assassins and spies,
unfurling from virtual woodwork
in a focus-stroking shell game,
much like the "Democrats" themselves,
or journalism's jugglers,
hooked with green IVs
to the Powers that Own.

for they dish out many isms,
and before enamoured eyes
installed the creaking floorboards
beneath the bulging, bloated clown,
that deftly played distraction
who could hardly accomplish,
left to his own narcissistic devices
this decades-long descent,
let alone the perfectly executed
Ayn Rand Strangelove's
homeopathic cabinet
of all-consuming decapitation.

the Bully in Chief,
that one-man travelling brand,
the bleached whale poster child
of Wee Willy Syndrome,
is opportunity's opportunist,
incapable of creating anything,
leering from lurid curtains
when times and rubes ripen.
the biggest baddest wolf
at the Protection Racket's revolving door.
the demon head on the flipping, counterfeit coin,
bedazzling the preening flock
of endangered, lopsided, ill-informed eagles,
pinioned by their surplus
of righteous right wings.

like the slickly conflicted corporate menus
the demented beacon's atrophied citizens
and reassigned consumers are saddled with,
the French electoral circus
doesn't furnish off ramps
from the lockstep, bipartisan,
rapaciously exceptional,
paved with rampant "interests"
and "inessential" corpses,
24-7, highway to hell.

**** * * **** * * ****

- Evan Hawthorn, the 11^th of May, 2017