poems about power

Fantasies

A slimy, diseased presence
Insinuating itself into daily
Discourse, spreading spores
Infecting the conversation,
Blurring the lines of veracity.

Small, petty, diseased creatures
Bloviating about the latest
Manufactured outrage,
Anti-truth serum pulsating
Through collapsing veins.

Feeding more coal into the fire,
Stoking the flames of discord,
Prurient power fantasies,
Conscience gagged, extinguished,
Kneeling at the altar of money.

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Peddlers

Mendacious malefactors
Gleefully ditching integrity
For fistfuls of cash
Diverted to secret accounts.
Terrifying the rubes,
Making them look the other way
While separating them
From what little they
Still clutch.
Venal peddlers of untruth
Wrapped in mantles of righteousness
Threatening to blow up
The whole thing if they
Don’t get their way.
Predictably oppressive regime
Bent on absolute power and control,
Simpletons demolishing honor
In the name of personal gain.
Malevolent farce masking
Complete incompetence,
Merciless extortion.

Animate

Sitting in his favorite chair,
He motions to his wife to
Fetch him another beer and
Stares blankly into the
Television where a smug
Talking head reinforces all
His worst impulses and
Lends credence to the appalling
Thoughts clogging his every
Waking moment, physically
Animate, emotionally dead.

Dismantle

Under the guise of
Revering personal freedom,
A huckster carny
Palavers to dismantle
Vital institutions that
Build civilized societies

A pernicious warrior declaring
That government should be
Severely curbed, for no other
Reason than an appalling
Absence of caring, compassion,
Sense of community.

Everyone

Duplicitous kingpins
Promise a land of
Fairness and good
Old-fashioned competition.

Reality more like
A trap for everyday
People struggling to
Not be swallowed whole.

Pervasive myth of a
Self-correcting system
That provides for
Everyone.

Eroding

Unstoppable rip current of
Ruthless malice, selfishness,
Eroding everything in its path.
Rapacious plunderers protecting
Coddled mega corporations
From horrible regular people
Struggling to make a living,
Pay the mortgage, as
Water pours in,
Dissolving their dreams.
Sandbags disintegrating
Against incessant onslaught,
Wall breached by marauders
Hungry to despoil the
Social contract,
Promising prosperity,
Delivering suffering.

Break Room

In the break room
At the giant retailer,
They put together
A collection box
For families that
Need help over
The holidays;
Help from people
Who have no money
To people who have
Even less.
Corporate lords
Snicker in vast
Mansions as their
Employees wither,
Their pay not enough
To sustain them
And their families,
Public assistance
A necessity.

Spaghetti Feed

Organizing a spaghetti feed
For a sick child
Instead of supporting
Universal health care.

Raising funds for local schools,
Then voting for people who
Cut education funding and
Endeavor to privatize it.

Gathering clothes
For the poor while
Demonstrating against
A living wage.

Commonplace paradoxes,
Caring people destroying things
They claim to support.
Unhealthy contradictions.

Better Lives

With single-minded
Zeal, they’re off
To help those less
Fortunate live better lives.

A project to bring
Relief to the remote
Village in exchange for
Eternal fealty to dogma.

A perpetuation of the
Same kind of hierarchy
That keeps them down
In the first place.

Domination by any
Word is still the
Same wretched exercise,
Selfish, self-serving.