by Imogen Arate
 |
| Art by Ann Telnaes |
I.
The video stunned
The spin followed
An award-winning poet
has been silenced
by the shrill bullets from a
21st-century fast-drawing
cowboy on the man-made
frontiers of the new wild West
Yet we’re subjected
to the lies of a rapist
Another man trying
to justify violence
against women
A bad remake
of another family
forced into mourning
another community
thrown into chaos
II.
Yet we still think in terms
of elephants and donkeys
while neither will draw down
on the military budget
sunset high-tech toys
hardware for the police and
other testosterone-charged
angst-driven angry boys
tear down boundaries
that gate-check
investments in decency
beyond the borders
of “me and my”
Repulsive successive local waves
reinforce the national and the
global of political expedience
and small and large lies stack
upon one another to enrage
as the bodies of the sacrificed
emit the noxious gas
of corruption to explode
in a tsunami of grief and fury
III.
He who became
a millionaire at eight
nursed on government subsidies
bailouts and tax breaks
feeds us the fast-food diet of rancor
while he grabs a pussy a plane
a tanker a president oil fields
Greenland and lusts after resort money
built on a still-hemorrhaging mass grave
But he’s just another opportunist
a symptom mushrooming on the
advantages of Eugenicist
elitism ripened by everyday
brand ambassadors gladiating
for a piece of the imaginary pie
IV.
Our pens may ink mighty words
but their impressions are paper thin
against the hurried tunneling
of semi-automatic street artillery
bump-stocked by the political will
of fuel-guzzling AI overtaking human
value as they peel away with the
breeze blasé over endless shootings
grown accustomed to washing away
anguish with yet more agony while
prayers whistling show tunes
to soundtrack the cha-ching
of firearms outstripping humans
V.
But she was a white citizen
Why should that be the red line
when we don’t let spilt blood
rust before sacrificing more lives
to our inane judgement of worth
This social engineering
was never meant to end well
when chaos has no red line
maelstrom cannot be reined in
The hunger of greed
self-perpetuates
in unchecked growth
to unleash the pandemonium
of a self-fulfilling prophecy
tear down boundaries
that gate-check
investments in decency
beyond the borders
of “me and my”
Repulsive successive local waves
reinforce the national and the
global of political expedience
and small and large lies stack
upon one another to enrage
as the bodies of the sacrificed
emit the noxious gas
of corruption to explode
in a tsunami of grief and fury
III.
He who became
a millionaire at eight
nursed on government subsidies
bailouts and tax breaks
feeds us the fast-food diet of rancor
while he grabs a pussy a plane
a tanker a president oil fields
Greenland and lusts after resort money
built on a still-hemorrhaging mass grave
But he’s just another opportunist
a symptom mushrooming on the
advantages of Eugenicist
elitism ripened by everyday
brand ambassadors gladiating
for a piece of the imaginary pie
IV.
Our pens may ink mighty words
but their impressions are paper thin
against the hurried tunneling
of semi-automatic street artillery
bump-stocked by the political will
of fuel-guzzling AI overtaking human
value as they peel away with the
breeze blasé over endless shootings
grown accustomed to washing away
anguish with yet more agony while
prayers whistling show tunes
to soundtrack the cha-ching
of firearms outstripping humans
V.
But she was a white citizen
Why should that be the red line
when we don’t let spilt blood
rust before sacrificing more lives
to our inane judgement of worth
This social engineering
was never meant to end well
when chaos has no red line
maelstrom cannot be reined in
The hunger of greed
self-perpetuates
in unchecked growth
to unleash the pandemonium
of a self-fulfilling prophecy
Imogen Arate is an Asian-American poet in search of hope: that humanity will overcome our self-destructive tendencies to work together against the onslaught of the climate crisis. She's also the Executive Director of Poets and Muses, an award-winning multimedia artist platform that has featured diverse contemporary poetic voices from around the globe. She believes that we will only be able to value lives equally when we lend our ears and hearts to the life stories of those we don't readily recognize as our kin and stop requiring the presence of certain socioeconomic trappings to recognize people's right to a dignified existence.