Ignorance Rules the Hour
A Poem
--
you hail from a kingdom
of riches long past —
so far from this needy generation
made up of your sons and daughters
you tell us all the time
that it’s all our fault
for not working more,
for sleeping too much,
for buying cheap wine,
for crying out at the injustice
of what it means to pay for
just the right to exist
you sang glories of your brothers,
all those men who bled out millions
into the hands of cronies and thugs
who weren’t called out at all
just because they had the nice suits
and the top-shelf cologne to mask
the scents of greed and power
that made us die another day
you don’t see the fires outside
your little retirement community
where the grass is always manicured
behind gates of white and gold
you tell us the world was better
in those long-ago days, wartime hours,
where a new day was no guarantee
and we know you’re lying to yourselves
because the actors may have changed
but the agenda is always the same
because war is the perfect distraction
away from a society on the brink of collapse
you sing your lords and ladies praises —
oh, wait, those are the politicians
who have you eating out of their hands
while they buy up your votes
and try to sell another sob story
of persecution against the Old Guard —
but you won’t listen to facts
even as they dance in front of you
you hail from a country
that none of us can see at all,
yet you act like we’re the…
