What good is poetry
if it doesn’t stand up
against the lies of government,
if it doesn’t rescue us
from the liars that mislead us?
What good is it
if it doesn’t speak out, denounce what’s going on?
It’s nothing
but harmless wordplay to titillate and distract—
the government knows it,
and can always get rid of us if we step out of line.

That I believed in poetry,
even when I betrayed it,
that I came back to its central meaning
—to save the world—
this and only this
has been my own salvation.
 

He’s making war
because God told him to.

God wants him to smash the godless.
They’ve got no right to have oil wells.
God didn’t mean them to.
God promised that he owns everything.

Torturing people,
God told him that’s all right too.

We’re pretty good at it,
but he can get foreigners to do it better,
out of sight.
Besides God, he’s got terrific friends.

Tortured people,
he believes what they say,
about WMD, plots to blow things up—
I’d also tell him anything he wants,
just to make him stop.

God told him to bring democracy to his enemies
and the way is to smash them—
the bigger the bang the better.
And we’ll count the votes for them
to show them how to hold elections.
He’s got some terrific vote counters on his team.

Of course, if God tells you to do something,
you do it.
The only problem is, is it God in your ear
or some itchy wax?

It was only when the cars were marooned in garages,
everyone shivering because heating oil was unavailable,
and crowds of the starving broke into food warehouses and markets;

when inflation had wiped out savings and made pensions meaningless—
jobs? forget it!
and with the country sunk into the deepest depression in its history,

that everyone finally woke up as if from a dream
and saw the criminal clique they had put their trust in,
that had destroyed their lives.

Even the Christians who believed they had someone
in the White House on their side finally knew
it was just rich men, oil men in particular,
who had used their pentecostal ideas, cynically,
to fill their own pockets.

The government tried to rescue itself from the debacle
by declaring a holy war, not only on Terrorism,
but on the Muslim World.
This was suicidal, like Hitler from the bunker.

But the country was no longer listening.

The military initially tried to take over
by declaring a national emergency, but the soldiers weren’t being paid—
they stayed only because they were being fed.

Even national television for once refused
to cooperate with Pentagon directives. People
just wanted their country back. No way, with the crippling national debt—
even with inflation it was overwhelming.
We owed the whole world for their money
that had kept the fake prosperity going for so long.

But now, who to believe? There were many
who offered to lead us to recovery, but they were tarnished
with their support of the disgraced administration
and its disastrous wars in the Middle East.

The Christian Right had its zombie army,
and other militias sprang up around the country.
It looked like the South was finally going to break away from the rest,
as it was prevented doing in the Civil War.

That’s when the country got behind the UN and the World Court
setting up a tribunal to try our leaders.

Fantasy? They’re going on trial, just you wait.

Bill Clinton just had it naturally,
but George W’s got a sure-fire enhancer,
the parachute harness pulling up between his legs.

It’s like wearing a tool belt, or the dangling telephone—
once you’re seen in this getup,
you’re a real gun-toting American.

Your real gun-toting American loves him— 
sure, they can see it’s an act,
but it’s the same as theirs.

Like the cowboy accent and swagger kids put on, not to be sissies,
and grow out of, or else end up no-goodniks, in jail,
not usually the presidency.

It’s an appropriate costume
for a dyslexic, cocaine-snorting frat boy
whose daddy bought him oil wells and a baseball team,

who never had to win an honest election,
who’s crowing Mission Accomplished
announced the beginning of America’s humiliation
the hurricane that his agenda has brought on us.

Don’t be fooled by the parachute harness.
The truth is that bunched up between the straps
there’s nothing there.