Be Aware: Disillusionment and Liberty’s Lie

(Unfortunate epiphanies from beyond American history.)

[Be aware:

We sit at the top of a regime,
an empire of terror that we send out
like envoys abroad;
envoys turn assassins
in bitter self-interests,
sell swords with bloody blades,
the blood of innocents bought
at costs unpayable.

We can’t see the worst–
we only see what hurts.
Blood trickles down
our pyramid of power,
not up,
down to 
the dark pools
of Texcoco,
down from Texaco
Washington to Tenochtitlan,
down to Panzos and el Mozote,
dark skin spattered red
by white agents of terror
vested all in green,
burning red flags–
blood in the water,
and we are all blind.

We live in the lap of luxury
our fruit mixed, our clothes laced
with the carnage of our enemies,
the friends of true freedom,
the warriors for justice–
desensitized, our noses no longer smell the decay and corpses piled in our liberty’s lie–at what cost?

Blood costs for iron rule.

[Be aware.]

Our middle class is a mask
for our poverty,
And our rich masquerade as
middle class,
And when we go abroad we
get back
Manufactured images of idyllic 
views,
And foreign industries that make
it feel
Like home: capitalist, imperialist
haven of
Neoliberalism.

But who needs ghost stories when
your world is a graveyard?

[When the government no longer
serves or represents the
people’s interests, or even the
greater half of the population,
but instead represses them,
it’s time to get a new government.] 

[It’s time for change.

Be aware.]