By Feud
The Democracy Acrosticy
Day after day we hear of the people
Elegant words from eloquent men
More cant skips from steeple to misshapen steeple
Or the prison, the college or iniquitous den
Crave us the truth for the lies that you tell
Regale us with fears about our enemies’ spies
Are you on the level, My God, are you hell
Cry out of shame for your hideous black lies
You tell us you need more and more powers
Inevitable, you using statistics as ‘proof’
Save our country, you cry, fear you sell by the hour
Democracy is yet further parted from truth
You’ll stay in power for ever and a day
In spite who you vote for, the government gets in
No good though will come and we’ll each of us pay
Grief brought us to this, grief and your sin!
Retire to the riches your evil has styled
In the days still to come they will burn down the sky
Pernicious liar; I fight you ‘til I die.
Dedicated to Tony Blair; war criminal and charlatan
The Demagogue
Inglorious, ignoble, lowly you stoop
Bereft of thought or hope or heart
Never yours a soul recouped
So rotten from the start
In some other time your witless cant
Might have graced some dark rally
In this lighter age your recompense is scant
As your exchequer tallies
Hypocrisy your guide, endless guile your way
Dishonesty your trusted friend
Bad faith your constant voice
Plotting out the means without the ends
Death or glory; make your choice
The fault is always someone else’s
Isn’t that what you say?
Yet still they sing to you in excelsis
These lackeys who you pay
***************
Renee Garcia Brown
I think, Mr Feud, I’ll be adding you to the list of the very, very few poets I can actually read and admire.
The first of these two poems accurately reflects the fury of any of us “little people” against those who place themselves in power over us and claim that what they do has popular mandate and is therefore correct.
The second comes close to the bone in exposing how these people get the “mandate” they use as a shield to explain their crimes.
The poems intrigued me for their cross-Atlantic views. Even though the United States has an intellectual knowledge of democratic decision within the European nations, i think there is a sub-conscious opinion that Americans are the experts, therefore the loudest in proclaiming the issues concerning democracy. They tend to forget that democracy is a generally understood philosophy and doesn’t need to be drummed into the minds of every country. The consciousness is there and also the false representations in all their various textures. I’m glad you’ve joined Subversify and hope to see more work from you in the future.
“Democracy is yet further parted from truth” and isn’t it the goal of any charlatan of any kind to part a fool from his/her riches? We have gone soft and allowed this. What to do now?