THE NEW ROMANS LEARN . . .

artwork: ralph murre, after sculpture by june la combe

THE NEW ROMANS LEARN DOUBLESPEAK 

       [On the destruction of the Baghdad Museum]

by Arlene Zide 

War is peace and

peace is tyranny

A robot

mouthing words he's been rehearsed to.

Whatever questions

he is asked

he answers in the currency

of plastic

platitudes

flag, freedom, democracy

peace.

Security -- war is peace

peace is war

war is security

security is war

we will destroy

this village/city/nation/child

to save it.

We will bribe the barbarians

burn the Library, let them pillage

7,000 years of history,

enrich the greed
y to save freedom, peace . The nation

will sacrifice the young

for our glorious future,

silence the speakers

to save liberty,

tax the poor,

kiss the oily feet of the wealthy

to free the dogs of war

trailing

napalm, biting

at their open sores.

~ first appeared in The Pedestal

POPULIST RAGE

artwork: ralph murre

POPULIST RAGE

by Arlene Zide

Everyone is suddenly angry.

Angry in concert.

They’ve identified the bad guys —

the corporations, the insurance companies and banks,

the venal

superrich, their vain wives and over-indulged children,

those  errant

gas-guzzling

husbands   who’d been cheating all along.

They all say they didn’t know. 

They say they were

innocent,   victims

of slick hotshots, those

self-absorbed moneymaking high fliers. 

They,

they’re  just the poor populace, the taxpayers, the American people,

innocent.

They don’t say,

how years ago they voted;  how they cheered

the stunned deer president they let

be swept right up into a lie of office,

they don’t say how they jeered

the claims

of torture, the doubts of any questioners, the opposition

caged, 

far from self-congratulatory conventions.

They don’t say,

how they

chose

not to see

the flimflam sleight

of hand,

the sneer of cunning.

~ first published in Reader Supported News