The Current Carnival

The Current Carnival
Politicians are the midway carnival barkers of this age
Sorry, carnies, no insult meant to you
Step right up and claim the adrenalined fist-raising
Now, here’s da rules, they intone like bowtied boxing referees
But these rules are mercurial in meaning, not made for such as them
Rules that mean nothing to the POWER
Like flowing ink on the skin of betrayed Syrians
Or pigment-painted cavewalls studied by hunted Afghan children
And calligraphic fliers stuck in the hollow of a Vietnamese jungle-tree
Don’t you dare look closely or you’ll see
A hidden banner of Cuban solidarity
Or an African mother wailing for her diamond-finding son
These ambulating piles of foreign meat, they dare
TO NOT CONSUME BUT LIVE THEIR DAYS
And so our carrier, it stays
parked oh so near the giant pools
Of Earth-Poison, the gogo stuff of future nightmares
A city on a hill of bodies bled dry for the Republic.