><> the yanked roots of a strange discrepancy, coupled with an unruly apostasy of profiteth naught revelations; *<* (an unsoothing forsoothing of ruthen truth)

*[having come upon this statement
  whilst perusing the viewsings
  aired in the eddies of a gangweighed fray]:

* *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** *
*  I think we should just reopen everything.
*  Our society is full of "we're really just going
*  to let a bunch of people die" situations.
*  The answer has been a bored "yep" for my entire life,

*  I don't see why this should be any different.

* ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** * ** * *** *
  ...

*

in an inseparable peace

instilling an opened window,

appeared in a bird alighted

a hearkening to qualms
of the
balking falconer's

admittedly unwitting amanuenses;

imparting with a start,
felt in marrowed narrows,
arrowed
through the heart

this sooth is surely true.

*

certainly when
the walking dead referred to

are hyphenated Americans

with African ancestors
and burned out
tailed
tail lights.

or happen to tread
some off-colour place
in the
profit charmed
progress of the pilgrims'
rightless side of harm's way,

such as, for instance,
that of a vaulted guild of guilt
pet partners in colonial crime,

like the hapless unpersons of Palestine.

or simply wish to live
according to their own ideas,

under their own stars

like those adamantly
unrecognised cousins

(impositionally unblessed,
competitively unimpressed,
the narratives of
haloed independence digressed)

practically anywhere else.

say, under that golden state stealing
handed down ring of gringos'
racist and placist backyard boot

forever shadowing Latin America.

or in Southeast Asia,
where we wiped
the living things out
in multiple millions

for failing to obey
consumptive presumption's
gold ruled dictates

and still hold the
poison smattered,
heartshattered

survivors accountable

for the paltry
in comparison

deaths that matter

amoung those
adolescence damaged,
emotionally unsalvaged,

brain washed
or
indigent

uniformly pride bent

assassins we sent.

or,
then again,
fallen in amidst that
consistently amassing
"history" misted
blistering of bystanders

whose rifled luck has hung
"internally displaced" awnings
in the industriously coveted
new age dawning maw

wherever there might be
a
built
in supply
of
nails for the coffin
of elasticked plastic's
bombastic triassic suicidal oil
the owners of "democracy"
can
leverage.

none of which
over there geography

(of hoardings' boarded "global battlefield" Risk)

could possibly fail
to be dutifully,
indisputably,
dependably written off

by both of apparency's scripted "sides"

in that context repellent,
benevolence congellant,
mythically exacting,
impact redacting

abject abdication
of establishment
stenographied,
reality atrophied,
gentrified "journalism"

as yet more
infinitesimal drops

in the undisclosed bucket list
of the preternaturally astonishing
insurmountably uncountable mistakes

feckless good intention makes

buried in the bottomless graveyard
of instantly forgotten collateral damage

in the hedging gradations of shade
guarding the secretive gardens
of raked over responsibility

"accidentally"

"incurred"

whilst

 "protecting freedom."

*

and what lies

at the root
of this
strange discrepancy?

this tacit shafting
of
rafting shards
in a Puritan installed

sifting of "values"
set
adrift

in that "only essential"
City on the Hill's
sunset settling
of its ashes

rushed
to
dust?

what could possibly be
rupturing the rapting
in those
anxious flagging flaps
of
preventative perception's

clarity of disparity

temporarily contrary rift?

what could pluck discord
from the staid ennui
entrenched
in
the trance
of the
cognitive dissonance dance

in
the overlooked lee
of the resistant persistence

already so exhausted
from the plated
wading

waiting

for the return of normalcy,

hollowed out in the
hallowed be thy shallows,

following all that
must see tv,

as "justice" rumples its laundry,

impeachment impends,

and faith based "intelligence"

renders moot
its
ironically unprovable,

evidence free existence?

*

and the desperate donkeys bray,

incensed that the
strutting sTrumpet
in the used up capital
of abusery's
ramming capital,

pulling off those canny
manicured and tanned,
well spoken gloves,

bowing for the cameras
as the registers
sling their jingle,

draping the
sitting ducked tweeting canyons
with his loosing of cannons
that
nervously twitch
the deep perked smirks
of the
Masters of War
and mumming puppeteers

lurking behind the dimples
in
the "free press" of curtains,

has made it all
so
embarrassingly obvious.

hence the fallowed following
of implicitly complicit
vestigial liberals pray

for a bleary eyed rendezvous
with a dosing of nostalgia's
practically tactful amnesia;

for Saint Obama's
mellow and seamless
leakin' beacon dreamland

that jived with their delusions,

longing to see
only
the evil shown;

directed by the spotlight,

to bask in the contrast

given to projection;

warn out from that
wearying stint

mindlessly abetting
the share if you agree
impairment apogee
one
plus
resuscitation
of bugged
and
rug tugging,
cartoonishly mugging,

treason backed into season

latter day McCarthy zombies;

helping the order

restoring
sixties smiting CIA

silence

that perplexing

unAmerican onset

of Russian cootied dissent;

attacking the
risibly breezy barn sized target
of the incorporated media's
we only have eyes for thee
see monkey yeast Frankenbeast

from the deep seated
"Democrat" pleated,
bastion fashioned right;

stroking up the
of we we sing
tandem ragtime band

in a teaming unison
of benevolent dismay
at a strange government
in América del Sur

still attempting to cater
to the unprecedented,
courageously
tenacious wishes
of indigenous peasants,

as if that were a thing
real democracies,

(let alone primaries)

actually did

when,
with just a little help
from our 
"homeland" zoned
stone throne
sewn in oarless corps
of
bipartisan artisaned
yanking ingenuity
tetherers of a feather

say, coerced starvation,
rabble rousing thugs,
and a sponsored
coup or two

the European migratory
ring of robber barons
could be stealing
Venezuelan
nest eggs, too;

and most essentially
vital of all
to the
patriot baited,
paranoia ingested,
compounding
of
conquering,
divisive viral "interests"

both brands
of
bestselling box tops

are invariably for,

tightening the titans'
tilting stranglehold
for a last gasp clasp
of its we own the world
whirlirigged gig,

tanking life on earth
for its
sanctioned domination;

mounting a
wee willy syndrome induced
full frontal assault
to wrench apart
Death's temporarily
departed,
Union Jacked
and opium roped
arena in the Pacific,

staving off,
at least a little longer,
that inscrutable
silken road's
craving for dollars caving,
decades in the paving,
Global South inclusive

unbristling of the path
to
a
multipolar world

toward which
that yellow peril sequel

(the latest up and coming
dastardly bar Sinister
successfully independent
glaze pressed and roasted
Godzilla of the day)

escorted in the shelter
of the sprinted ahead
flexed nuclear muscle
of yesterday's
freedom fried,
homophobe strobed,
demonised
Putin

is so inexorably bent.

*

but lo!

our pricking of discrepancy
stemmed from the wickedness
of malignant contingencies
this way crumbed

lies unanswered.

for what could
stick in the craw
of such exemplary
ordering of law?

where all lives
are rumoured to matter,
yet the very concept
of rehabilitation
has
gone the way
of peace,

last seen at a wake
for the CIA assassinations
that turned those tables
for the peerless
warkeepers'
vested arrestings of destiny;

blowing out the candles
of history's wrongsided
sanity avatars
Martin and Robert,

heading off that
last minute
compassionate
awakening of John.

yet we need not ask
what our country
might not do
unto the
espied
it
despises

when the rockets' red glare
still tasers the air,

teenage boys athwart
the borderless spite
in might's righted sights,

in a gift that keeps on giving
from liberal sided Obama,

are presumed
"enemy combatants"
until they're proven dead,

and the battered tatters
of
for, by, and of the people
are brutalised
in the
militarised everywhere at once

ever more vicious
clamping down,
social distance winnowing,
soon to be
entirely stamped out

high crime of protest.

and
blast capped yeast
from the past
last,

blue clad posses
still roam the graphic loam,

working the shirking
of school unfunded
water starved streets
and
horror stricken pavements

in primed, cocked, and blamming,
sopping copped entrappings,
adolescent fantasies,
and super hero jammies

so handsomely commanding
at cinching the lynching
and prisming the prisoning

that drowns out and tramples

the choices
and
the voices

of the "them"

amoungst the "us."

*

yet still unpitted,

that dangling
partition
of
pity

stalled
in
scarcity's place

tugs and rankles.

strange discrepancy,

wherefore
pangs
thy sting?

what telltale
larking spark
could smoulder

in seeping keeping
with long discarded
remnants
of the
smothered other

in those barely clothed
woolen folds
of
empirical attired ire

disquieting
the entertained
and vanity reined,

unheard herd
of
privilege tillaged,
defense fenced,

pillage spillaged
and
protection pretensed

progressively possessive
blithe genocide abiders

smack in the midst
of their multiyear

circus of the scars
elective exorcise
in
futile
projectile
tractioned
distraction

(with nary a chance
the exclusively elusive
thumbing down the classes
privied trunks and asses

might ever interfere

with that good ole'
cowboy domi-alpha-nation
white god sanctioned,
mother of bombs' apple pie
and Washington's charring tree

sacred uninterrupted spree

of time out of mind
immune to election,
devoutly unrepentant,
religiously interventant,
blatantly unconscionable,
intergenerational
crimes against humanity)?

what could fly in the anointment
of the ever indignant ruffling
of well appointed feathers
on
that rare
and rampant,
liberty stamped,

red and blue blurring bird

that streaks the ominous sky,
sleep stalking
in the palely mined
starless midnight blight
of its two righted wings,

ravenously militant,

lost in the Reaper's
fevered dreams
of preened in America
consequence free
piracy,

power addicted
yet
impotent,

omnivorous for prey?

such uncharted
hitherto unhearted
slotted pot kettling
tectonic unsettling
can only be

instinct

with the unnamed terror

aroused in the
nightmare possibility

that
this
time

the pandemic

won't turn out
to be
properly patriotic.

that,
contrary to
relentless tradition,

and
notwithstanding
all those sadistic scientists
whisked from the Reich,

infecting more blankets
won't leave
the clutched intersceptres
of
"exception's"

"last great hope" unscathed

throwing into shocking
unbolting jolts
man-unkind's
infestly destinied,
rigor mortis fortified,
righteously hypnotic,
self-focus cloaking
perpetuating system;

rocking against
the blocking
of that cradle
to
the fall
flick slicked
craven staved
airwave conditioning
that
cornered all the boxes;

sinking the blinkered syncing
of locked intoxications
in the clogging rotted plankings,
banked on rankings,
and slinking tinkered tankerings

of
right thinking Americans.

for surely the bible...

the one that's parroted
but never read;

the one that led a holy man
to speak of love instead;

the literal one
that can't be bled
without interpretation

coined in smug Orwellian speak
for pandered exhortation;

the one where sponsors'
manna falls
in stalls
and
good news trickles,

that less,
(for us, below)
is more,

and two
(et tu?)
are always for

torturing the messengers
that dare expose
the
gods of war;

the one that gels so awfully well

the plumbed
depths
of
freedom,

a phantasmagoria
of
pornographic gore,

with the fife scored,
worth berthed
smiley faced mirages
of the duly
ruling annals
of
a fighting "for" lore.

between the lines
of oft thumbed
chapter knit befitting

that raison d'être
of a fetterers' begetting,

the revenge called justice,

(ever likened unto payment)

is naught but fell enforcery's

ensorceror of crime,

no less a rapt apprentice

completing the consensus
of murder's
olden scrolling
testamentary rhyme.

the cheering, thence
for justification's
crescendoed happy ends

in the century long
trending vendetta

of Hollywood's serial
bloodletting goods,

(spooled in popcorned
well-trod wends)

are leached in the ruts
of CNN's schooled

convincing observance
of
threatening dreads.

for such is the weave
eavesdropping assassins

embed inside distracted heads.

in the near nigh haze
of freebased yore,

under the droning,
somnolent gaze
of the
latest liberal lulling,

in the name of "security"

(that holy of holies)

the eyes of said justice retired.

yet the serving fervour
in the presses' cataracts
has always been chained
to
the pox that profit wired.

that needling camel
in the patriot sty
means the essence of "news"
must
needs
be
a
lie.

a handful of agencies
affix its agenda,

enthralling implanting's

spurtings of currented

numbing regurgitation,

like a trumpeting draft
for
the honeyed
lumpen trumping
of monied registration,

helped along
by the virtual rage
for
doubtful and shoutful
sprouting reroutings

in the tolled
knowing tolding
of
reflection's silken pall,

socially attended
by two clannily clefted,

seldom intersected,

followings of a bouncing ball.

lest Christendom's
authoritative
gentlemen dismay,

beyond the pulpit's
bullying sway
of contorted
accompliced coercion

declarations
of
independence

are spelled into a threat

enabling the miracle
of freedom's representative

splurges on destruction

rendering unto
fishes and loaves

robust opportunities
for the saddling of debt.

for as 'twas always written,

in the multiplying biddings
that heapeth Goliath's
prodigal midden,

beholding's surplus citizenry,

are unto thee
born again consumers

implored into vapid traps
in the laying up
of stores

for the futures' market

right
to
choose

chiseled in doomsday ores.

the wonders of chemistry's
incendiary arts,

depleting uranium's
undone unminding hearts,

hath helped the devil's spawn
of awninged fawnings lodge

the unravelling tenet
of chaliced denial

that but passeth
ellipsised lips

that genocide's karma

might be dodged.

once thy good
beneath
its
nation hood

was pride goeth crowned

preexisting communal empathy
was safely quarantined
in
better dead than read,

shrouding disconnection's
oligarch starched

miseries
of
mystery

in weapons pimps and talking heads.

the reaping of technology
a hell on earth transpired

since war is made on
hamlets now

as World War Lost hath sired.

yea Christian soldiers
have always marched
as to the censors' stacking pyres

yet Silicon Valley
pulls all the strings
of listening's reglistening wires.

and fanning those
myriad flames of fear

the con
is
in the spire.

for the prophets must knead
their whoring profit

from extinction's latest spores

till fulfilling of biblical violence
revolves through all our doors.

so can i get a witness
from starry eyed believers

in the bereft and right
directional pliers
of history's deceivers?

the bipolar beacon,

that twin beaked reekin'

self-appointed
sheriff
of
the
earth,

both punning
and
shunning evolution,

unfailingly smashes

from the occupied edges
of
its unexplored dearth

every
breath
of
spring unsprung's,

unstung tongued
unforking,

unrunging revolution

whilst routinely,
resolutely,
rootin'-tootly
from
its own

it's riveted subjects

are "left", "right"
and
"centre"

exponentially weaned.

for its flocks have failed
to
understand

what independence means.

and so the strange discrepancy

cannot
be
understood.

for neoliberated man

has no words left

to protect him
from his own good.

and thus it follows

as certainly
as death unto "others"
dusts the
rust sprinkled trail
of tax collecting heels

those eight hundred
bristling bases,

armed to the dragon
tombstone teething
gathering
noose of thorns

round the plethora
of
democracy's
disregarded borders;

that recourseless
remorseless
destruction induction,

that torched swan song
of
human independence,

can only be
interpreted to mean

"they hate us for our freedom."

whilst propositions
of equalitied,
resurfacing connection,

isolated
and
railed,

must be godless commie deviation

in the rant planted
shale slanted
appalling walled tales
of
profitless folly's
sorry charlie
good golly woe.

hence verily,

wearily unsparedly,

the no-brainer
no obstainer,

visionless paned,

humanity drained,

Cain trained "American" thing to do

is give in to the
reigning supremacy
of
unimpeachable irony

loading its familiar rifles

to piped in
pop star bangled tunes

shuffled in by
the dangled angles
of
pinhead dancing angels

in that unison
voiceless
void
of
choice,

and sign the dotted line
of
hooked
to a shining
vested breast

lone star on the right,

straight on
till
mourning

reassurance of enduring

validation's status quo.

*

blue eyed Jesus loves me,

this i ought to know.

he wants the world to end,
ya' know,
in righteous wrath, aglow.

the gated serrated West
is
lined
up
with its history,

hawking cherished tickets
to
a toasting branch
from a boasting bush
on a parasite patriarch's

better (less bitter) side,

betting in that vetting
of doctored upheaval
that
cannot but follow
the sea level rise

and the all
but unendurable
wrench of tumult

from
a fragile,
mother loved,

billion simmering cries,

that whopping dividends
piled up
in
lifeboats

without even
the
forethought of
welfare shouldered paddles

will somehow,

beating yet more ploughshares
into sticks
and
stones
and
blood,

hammer out floating rods

so the winning tinned din
of
that America first
cursing hearse
of
seated conceit
of a chosen receipt,

good guised criminals

might keep from
whipping
into
the tithed tidings
of
whirlpools

the
drenched
aback racks
of
broken in
galley slaves'

obedient attempts to row.

sincerely,

oh! so eerily,

the humming drone
in
CIA cell phones

tells me this is so.

*

- Evan Hawthorn, the overlooked ides of the severed ever

the apathy of manacled choice, unattended hearts, and reined brains (a quixotic apostrophe, mused in translation)

all those noncompliant people
so righteously, indignantly,
de rigueur simplistically
dismissed as apathetic.

like calling
the mystically pliant
careening overweening
peer adhered
right to interfere,
progressively possessive,
benevolence bewitched,
causality pitched,

hitched
to
star blazed
superiority enditched,

thing crushed whitewashed
unread and bruised majority
currently struggling
with the fleeting indiscreet,
ash bedusted body's
host of hosted weighty issues

just a screen weaned
not to be
heard
of
indulgent swine.

yet surely there's
a shark encircled
circumventing nest
of fetchingly
resurfaced,
unstinting causes

compounded by 'interests',

besting,
vested,
and
divinely complexed,

immaculately maintained
by revolving doored,
ambitiously spored,
morality cored,
lavishly funded zombie armies
of corporate operatives

manning both
self perpetuating,
side sewn,
rammed, hemmed,
and spangle strewn,

competing Orwellian ministries of truth

grinding their primed prone stones 24 7,

hemorrhaging trust
in the never yet
even close to fulfilled
promise of democracy

as exceptionally practiced

(to reverse vectored perfection)

in a piracy beholden,
rifled and scolding
transubstantiated "homeland's"

(bought and preyed for)

policy proof,
humanity aloof,
apathy inducing hypocrisy.

and if the mere
ghost of a chance
for
meaningful change

should appear on that
lied stultified,
cravings paved,
genocide gentrified,
independence staved
blithely abided bleak horizon,

such as that offered
by the Green New Deal,

through an aging hippy's
careworn zeal,

frightening that rumbling
conceit of a nation's
fable enstabled,
elite piqued, heckling decked,
pickled pecking wrecking order
with a decades in the staking
begging to differ decency,

(though never in fact straying
to the left of Roosevelt;

a Risk playing upper crusting confidant
of "spread a lively terror" Winston's,

whose letters reveal his sharpened eye
on a top of the world
power inflicting future

waiting to count the corpses
bathing the waded Russian front
before deciding with which
Eurofying side to ally
in that eighty million sodded soul
exemplary templed war
that by the by,
in a biding idolled by,
thanks to the inventive wonders
of the right sidling progress
of airborne aggression,

abandoned trenched battlefields
for drenched cities and villages,
relocating Death's grisly theatres
and cascading civilian casualties
for all time to come,

and who managed nonetheless
to leave a depression impressioned,
"socialist" abstracted,
concessionally coerced legacy) 

and sweetening the deal,
the equally appalling
establishment galling
empathied unity
of those pesky wrestlers
for
right reelings' keel

nettling Dame Pelosi's
skeletal smile,

that colourful
heartful handful
of radically earnest
young ladies

so very disconcerting
to male dominance's
paydirt squirting,
crudely spurting,
dude protruding
eminently shaky prominence

then,
looming in the doom,

as rare as a blue moon
falling on a
strung together month
of honestly rayed,
grace enspaced,
equality timed
leap year days,

a valid reason
couldst rose up the dawn

reviving the abandoned hopes
of wised up recalcitrants,
nay sayers and ne'er do wells,
millennial belles,
'undesirable' swells,

and all those other
teamless eyed,
vanity unstained
and
Cain untrained
obstaining hesitants

defamed by the empire's
Sunday go to meetin'
church of right lurchin'
latter day status quo
only our do-so-do
shiny new mouthpieces

to bring them back
to the polls' doled folds
of separately corralled,
bred and rued,
bossily glossed
sleep voting sheep

for there might finally be 
a chance in hell
to actually change
the suicidal system.

as for whether or not
the pockets that lace
the system in place

might actually allow
such a drastic thing
to happen,

well that's
another question,
not meant for the
faint of heart.

but putting up more
of the non change
we've had all this time
is a sure fire way
to convince

the unbanked ranks
of
crowned by good's hood
sacking smacking
back tracked and patting
pushmi pullyu
absurdity herded
tribal hocus reworded
nation's interest intruders'

undeluded un-colluders

to stay at home
and hand another
oh! so shocking,
reality restocking,
us and them reblocking,
directional
history jumbling,
'good guy' cover fumbling

heart stopping election

to the only baited grating beast
the resistance persistence
of CIA embedding,
'furriner' dreading,
independence shedding,
creasing reason,
treason seasoned
faith based "Democrats"

seem to be capable of grasping.

(alas!
but for fortune's
distortions and sighs,
cavorting
with
camels
in practical styes.)

for it ought to be plain by now
that the paid to bray
brokered donkeys
didn't lose their dominoed
slate of state houses
and stranglehold
of held at bay prey
roped in minorities
due to hay rolled apathy.

more than half a century
of the less is more
effective evil's
photoshopped trollops
passing on the right,
remorselessly upping
the mongers'
mushroom clouded ante,

steadily defunding that
woefully disinformed citizenry
with third world demolishing
smoothly polished admonishings,
siphoned appropriations,
and the shafting lack thereof

seductively laden
with celebrity glittered,
espionage littered,
skittering, embittering,
change dangled and frittering
consistent betrayals
of the very notion
of representation itself

were bound to tip
the slipping scales
from 'apathetic'
(or put another way,
harder to manipulate)
eyes.

glaring omissions,
colonial commissions,
and choreographed evasions
do have consequences
after all

regardless of the
ubiquitously blared,
trumpeted and glared,
profiteer pursed,
insecurity cursed,
brotherhood hearsed,
walled street sweeping keepers'
aversed narrative verse
of the Boris Badenov
privilege tillaged,
fly in the spyware
tech infected
elsewhere deflected,
McCarthy resurrected,
evidence never inspected
lamely aimed maimings of blame.


*

as for the banding about
of a "perfectionist" trope
in
such a culpability eluding
scarecrow narrowed scope

the choiceless choice stackers
and mayonnaised crackers'
repented sense consensus
of sororitied authority's
duly designated
apocalypse eclipsed
ludicrously scrutinous
irreligious slackers,
traitorous hackers,
dissenting quackers,
and that
Putin bootied bevy
of useful tool whackers;

those marginalized,
socialist polluted,
grumpily encooted
ideally unsuited backers
of an on the outs
recalcitrant old man

who,
conforming with
virtually
all his acceptable rivals
and hosing's
docent chosen
farcical "impartial"
moderators thereof,

proudly dons
the protection racket's
collateral spattering,
felt guilt tattering,
naked aggression
and metal pedalling
silver lining jacket,

dutifully signs,
every apartheidtide,
the Senate's love letters
for Palestine Pentacost's
slight of holocaust
adolescent "mowing" lent,

always chimes in
for the this ain't us
great hymnbook's
irresponsive readings
of omitted provocations
and unison demonisations

that conveniently dish
every independent attempt
by our indigenous,
impoverished, and
more colourful neighbours
to improve their
subservience allotted lot

with those "tyrants"
they insist on electing 
despite their betters'
self buttering,
business buttressing,
local elite meet and greet
red fish blue fish
butted in wishes,

and who,
that last sultry summer
preceding
the great awakening
of Saint Obama's
slumbering,

handsomely blindered
to side bridled evil,

mind numbed
by pretty talk,

balked by
exclusive intrusive,
well intentioned caulk,

progressively repressive
illiberal militarists,

left unanswered
the Green's nick of time
sacrificial offer
to top their ticket
when he was trouncing
the strutting s'Trump'et
in the polls,

campaigning instead
for democracy's
still at large
manipulative bandits
who wouldst,
then and again,
trespass against him,

could hardly
be described
with even a modicum
of audacitied veracity
as
"perfectionists"

(when it comes to these
selective awareness,
conscience easing,
a dream is a wish
our slide brakes,
alternatives fendered,
ineffectively rendered,
tender on a bender
elective quadrennial
circuses anyway.)

that archly starched,
prefabricated argument,
dragged out amidst
its sea of despondency
every four years

like a predated bouncing check
of petrified prevarification
drawn on
the "freedom" fiefdom's
feudal sheaf,

that never turning leaf,

boxed in its toxic pox
of liberty mocking
apple pie in your eye,
us or the highway,
goodwill silled,
heroically billed
Crusader Invaders'
grilling gleam,

its utility of futility
a fit for the lidding
of that sepulchral
American Century's
bidding and seaming
we own the world dream,

grooving on its guised,
energising trance

shifting rifted sands
on
other peoples' borders

in that Russian ballerina
insignificance enhanced

terrorist embarrassment
reluctance to advance

maelstrom hailed to no avail

crossed line dance,

unfurling it's Jolly Roger
spreading democracy sails,

jingling the ignored,
conquest digressed,

(we know what's best)

skulduggery ruggery
gist of its mails,

that can only be plated,

not to say exacerbated,

by seeing this the way
the wall to wall,
identically rhymed,
invisibility
draped,

monarchist allegiance
of
donkey eared stenographers

(installing their thrall)

oblige their hallowed hollowers'

obedient followers

sinking in the shallows
of
fallowed swallowers

to see it,

as a choice between anyone and Trump.

and yet,

an unbidden unscripted dash
from unimpressed perception's
unplushed brush

(though to be sure it profits
the war prophets naught,

forgoing their fell
inky wells
of
the Ponce de León
eternal global battlefield,
knowledge unacknowledged,
spy unspied, assassin dyed,
murderous legacy denied

runnething over fountain
of
infernal innocence

forever spurtin'
that
frilled "news" curtain
of
shepherded self deception),

would nevertheless

seem to suggest

a never ending
rarely reported
in context contest

(and war to the death
of life berthed on earth)

between the
pyrrhic vampiric palely veiled,
solidarity impaling, plunder hailed,
world phobic and pitchfork tailed,
Western centred, peasant bailed,
colonial tutorial fenced and railed,

grasp clasped upper class
consumptive presumptive
incorporated oligarchy

that owns practically
the whole planet,

prides itself on smashing
any attempts at independence
the world over,

exempts itself,
in broad daylight
through
pridefully enfranchised
bipartisan arts
and
offshored artful dodges

from obscene preening's
intervening,
foreign threat projecting,
prospective insurrecting,
devil's plaything perfecting,
stooge stewing, coup accruing,
and brouhaha brewing taxes,

and lavishly finances,
talon over clenched fist,
unminding man-unkinds'
spectacularly abetted,
roadrunner rapid
ostrich headed
vapidly onsetted extinction

and we the imperfect
and currently
powerless people,

who have no party
to represent us,

and no free press

save that boarded hoarding
of mangled angling
amnesia fleeced graftings
crafting the agenda
spooking inequality's
manic ingress,

too invested in taking dictation
from interests' interests

to illuminate that
which they
immaculately redact,

let alone
bring
those rattling shades
of
truth to power,

or even attempt
to
brace us

for what is surely coming.

indeed,
almost all of the
sleekly reeked,
liberal beaked,
the lords are in their
counting house cliqued,
greased allaying,
introspection slaying
buoyed decoys

mounted by
the terminal nominal
"democrat" half
of the locked in
status quo
two party firmament

are gainfully employed
by the same
Herod's carrots
and Ayn Rand pricked
austeritied parody
of
lucre finned,
winning dinned,
ambition honeyed
saboteurs, provocateurs,
and monied moles;

those libertied tolling
soulless trolls
of
insatiable power affliction's

tacitly unquestioned,
complacently shrugged

racist presumption,
invasive predilection,
and freedom to destroy.

and though the
co-miserating media's
Frankenstein snarling,
curtain concealing,
all engrossing
rating's darling
is surely
the ugliest wart
that ever blossomed
amoungst
the
relentlessly trotted out
identity slotting,
rot besotting plotted clot
of human disconnection's
parasitic infection
we've grown accustomed
to calling "leaders"

on almost every issue
that matters to this
unbordered,

unAmerican,

"the least of these"

(thou unpersoned for me)

citizen of the earth

that is,
that has anything to do
with ceasing or reversing
what we're doing
unto others,

almost every single issue

save only those
incisively divisive
fraught social chasms
we're allowed,
nay, coaxed,
within the mainstream's
tightly scripted beams
to spar our oars about

(providing so convincingly
the riveting backdrop
for that numero uno
weapons' pimp
vaulted flag pole runner up
gross domestic product
illusions
of democracy

with its piped in bumper harvest
of sniper striped, posse lurking,
emotive explosive,
defensively offensing,
expletively entreating,
corrosive and useless
ad nauseum repeating,
compassion depleting, logic defeating
tweets and tweedle dumbed
astonishingly porous
contrary chorus

meant to occlude our
sound byte smitten,
tattle addled,
commodity saddled,
scattered and embattled
compartmentalized focus

in the carefully narrowed
miniscule notch
on that Overton window

that matters not in the least
which way it turns out
to the powers that own
the frames that tame us,

and consisting,
of course,
the par for that course,
of all that the
medicating
abdicated media

exclusively infotains
its foresight forsook,
intentionally mistook,
reality rooked,
indefensible context
entirely overlooked,
hooked by crooks
nooked flockings about),

they, all of them,

those other ring flung,

(and in the darkness bind them)

harmonious euphonious
respective nominees
in that elusively vented,
waftily consented,
democracy absented
vacuous breeze,

and often,
even that obstreperous
old trickster as well

(in keeping with the
left outright
and clefted center

warping portals
and
barges of denial
beached blonde
and bomber ken
snide bona fide
dead eyed Gumbys

humming their mummeries,

plumbing the depths
of depthlessness,

funneling channels
and pummeling papers,

broken toy generals and stalking heads,

and the rest of those posing,
manicured and vetted,
cloaking brokered asses
and rape gaping, sated,
bludgeoning trunks,

yanking their ranking stank
on endlessly regurgitated,
pandered and fatuous
patriotic chords);

always and forever,

more dependably certain
than the death
wrought by taxes
on people of colour,

than the fascism
bred at home
on Hollywood yeast
for over a hundred years,

than the absolute dearth
betraying
raving paranoia's
blithe despisals
and
prequel reprisals
comprising the
mirage
of
military "intelligence",

always
always
always

till the synched credits roll
and the bets stroll in
on the setting sun
of thought's besought

(war taught, whore bought,
blown back karma caught)

dazzled by its razzle,
sizzled off its rails,

tripped up in the irony
of homegrown coffin nails,

failed uppity primate experiment,

every last emphatically practical,
empirically tactical,
power thrilling,
independence chilling,
war crime inured,
minority culling police endured,

realistically proffered,
wham crammed laminated "choice"

comes down on the
very same contemptuous

suffering for "others" sanctified,
our importance reified,
intervention deified,
super hero armchair
sportily identified,
we're the best
conquest blessed,
haloed hollowed patriot lore,
glorified nation hooded gore

(what are we here for?)

don't let the other team score,
winningest ever
"indispensable" corps
for
the Masters of War
guild guided
and
glided

abiding side with Trump.


*

and so this fey heretic
heart choked awoke
bespoken sibling
of
our mother's othered children

wouldst verily ask

if he just
threw in the towel
and
voted for the next slated
Column A, insider rated a-ok,

convincingly invasive
and collusion groomed,
negative vacuum loomed,

Lucy's incredible inflating pigskin
eternally exhumed,

vulnerable brethren in the Global South
inescapably predoomed,

ever worse ogre
contrastingly perfumed,

the meaning of democracy
hypnotically consumed

pitiless psychopath anyway

how
in the hell
would
that

not

make him apathetic?

*
- Evan Hawthorn, the ides of tithing sides a-leaping; February, 2020

the trial of truth, tolled in pictures

next Monday will not be the day

the promise of democracy dies.

that loss,

to distraction's concerted deflection,

lingers unmourned.

instead,

blithe collusion's

siding of "history"

will bring

with ironic grim echoes,

drowning freedom's ring,

the sounding hammer blow

that seals its silenced coffin.

*
- Evan Hawthorn, the 18^th of never, 2020