Forever War

Under this phosphorus curtain,
In these blood-strewn streets,
I do not believe this war will end,
Which war you ask?
The forever war,
Humanity versus humanity,
Presided over by those arms dealer divines,
Lauded by sycophants of the political class,
Soldiers are mere cents,
Towns are legal tender,

Nations become naught more than stockpiles,
Fuel for the napalm fires,
Iron and uranium and young blood,
Progeny sent into a grinder en masse,
Front lines along the bottom line,
Eradication becomes a profit all its own,
Both decades and darlings have already rotted,
There can be no ceasefire,
When populations are just another currency,
To these hollow men.

Crash Machine

In these times,
Following the book of 1985,
All smokestacks and cameras,
We are thrown ahead as fodder,
Little cogs in the machine,
In to a world full of radiation and bad men,
We are crash test dummies,
Emphasis on dummies,

Coins in a grinder,
Crashing along government lines,
Amongst all the other wreckages,
All part of some smoking room plan,
All we are worth is what we can withstand,
What we can suffer,
But this is no simulated test,
This is real blood and guts life.

Dark Tower

You approach the dark tower,
A megalith of private business,
Its ebony walls in stark opposition to the sky,
Projecting an aura of foreboding to the peasants around,
A display of power in masonry,
You hear squeals and barbarism from within,
You approach over a lava moat of taxpayer dollars,
Musk and oppression emanate in waves,

Distraught souls and suited gargoyles,
Spreadsheets and torture devices,
Demons with security cards,
Ritual performed across desks of oak,
Monsters behind obsidian partitions,
Above those ironclad gates,
There is a plaque saying thus,
“Town Hall”,

Armed only with a downcast gaze,
You put hands on that cold metal door.

Government Work

I am bound to this place,
Consumed by these walls,
These offices of authority,
Branded with this name badge contract,
Fastened a bit deep to my chest,
I am to action this places will,
I am its blade and quill,
A rusty cog in an old machine,

Some serf comes before this department,
She comes begging for monetary salvation,
She will soon be homeless,
But we are no charity,
Too many have come begging today,
So the red stamp denies her,
Her tears a prayer to this place,
The doorman will remove her,

All in a days sweat,
Good enough for government work.

The Bus Ride

Perhaps on a whim,
I take a pilgrimage upon the buses,
Public transport cruise liner,
Past the blank-faced operator,
Sitting comfy amongst trash and the trashy,
Taking in all of the voices,
From my fellow bus ticket colleagues,
The factoids,
The information,
Barely a smirk between us,

Double-decker sardine tin on wheels,
From these cheap fabric thrones,
The views are magnificent,
Grey spires beside grey blocks,
Slate upon grey upon ash,
With a dash of fecal brown for a change,
It’s enough to bring a tear to the eye,
Until my stop beckons,
And those motorised doors open,
I finally escape into that gloomy grey.

Bureaucracy

Life is all documentation,
Each movement a form to fill,
A D1 or a CN22 or otherwise,
Every action requiring permission,
Of some faceless bureaucratic ghoul,
Simplicity was too inefficient,
Our bindings were a touch too loose,
So we were bestowed this obstacle course,

I can see my objective clearly,
But an olympic run away,
Strewn with red razor wire,
Burning hoops and dotted lines,
For each footfall a box to tick,
But not that one,
Wrong form after all,
Time to stumble.

Tyrant

A tyrant sits atop an ivory house,
An avatar to some,
A fiend to others,
The suit speaks,
Yellow eyes widened,
Red horns protruding,
Impersonating an altruistic deity,

The tweets fly,

He slams the world into his podium,
As if to give credence to his decrees,
Exploit the land,
Kill the poor,
Coddle the elite,
Ridicule the allies,
The edicts spew among hellfire,

The tweets soar,

Does he desire the apocalypse?
A demonic want,
Still clutching the lectern,
Belching hate into microphones,
Furnishing barbed wire to the lowly,
A servant of the people,
Who views only himself as a person,

The tweets burn.

Flags

You would think that flags were holy,
Sacred relics,
How they are so worshipped,
Visible at all the rallies,
Leading all the armies,
Do people not realise,
They are simple crass fabric?

Flags are living things they say,
Flying around on the wind,
They squawk things like,
“You win!”,
“Here be friends!”,
“Leave me be!”,
“Here be dragons!”,

All manner of divine symbols,
Pennants of myriad beliefs,
Flags of nations past and present,
Ensigns of every shade,
Some are benign,
Others are oppressive gods,
Worshipped by churlish bigots,

Flags perform for all who gaze,
People elate at their wistful dances,
They are both cherubs and incubi,
Performing in every hurricane,
But alas,
I tell lies of course,
They are simply soulless fabric.

Snakes And Ladders

A friend once told me of a man,
A deceptive corruption of a person,
A viper,
His skin scaly as sin,
Fangs dripping from previous kills,
Gripping to the world by constriction,

He climbs a ladder of life,
To personal happiness and glory,
At the expense of others,
Each rung is another souls verve,
Innocent obstacles,
Squashing them underfoot,

Whispering lies in one ear,
Hissing threats to another,
Ravaging penniless mice,
Grounding birds of others dreams,
Each step is a test of his malevolence,
And he continues to excel himself,

To his reptilian mind,
Elitism is a virtue,
People are simply tools of advancement,
Existence is a ladder,
A cutthroat meritocracy,
And so he keeps climbing,

On and on.

Strawman Argument

From these shores,
To many others,
Red,
Blue,
Green,
Flag after flag,
Of all stripes,
Strawmen are erected,

Fallacies are spawned,
Ideas are distorted,
And eviscerated,
To sate a tribal idealism,
Debates become bloodbaths,
Scholars lose themselves,
And become cut-throats,
With fallacious dirks,

Being right is the only victory,
Even as sense must be sacrificed,
Herbal teas spilled,
The diplomatic table is in flames,
Chessboards and statistics,
Logic has become smoke,
The strawman still stands.