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Home is Where the Assault Rifle Is

By Cliff Lake
  Home is Where the Assault Rifle Is   The promises deflated, The charts pointing nowhere. The statistics dancing to the strident melody, The midnight rant, The better bully welcomed. What warm air can further pump the ego? More guns. Get them out on the street where they belong! Bring the fear home. Show the world! Flaccid power display. Shake your fist at the lies you tell: That’ll show ‘em! Bring the fear home, Swamp the streets with the unnecessary, How that wets the pants! Power over your groupies slipping, You show them more guns, That’s entertainment! This is the circus, Will they do without the bread? Have you found your Colosseum, Or the Bastille? More guns then! Bring the fear home! March the military round and round! When two or more are gathered in democracy’s name, Is that a riot? Certainly some find your moves laughable… And some find lockdowns distasteful, And most of those voted for… More guns th...
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Dead Silence

By Cliff Lake
  Dead Silence   Why do you shout so? You have been heard before. Though not all your words have been so clumsy. Still, some have disguised their intent. Too long you have professed charity, Too long you have written the moral. Too long behind the compassionate rifle, Too long taking careful aim. Soiled virtue your superhero cape, You become the cartoon villain. The generous hand can also wield the whip, What price goodwill? Transactional friendships tire eventually. Broadcasted voice gone strident, Your red glare rocks the ramparts, Stripes and stars inverted fly. Has your twilight come at last? Or is dawn yet coming, Not as much a rebirth as a lesson: Dark will not endure. Will you again be a giant, But more gallant, More genial, More grounded, And less grinding. With such hands, Giving could be lavish, And still provide comfort at home. No miser has yet carried his savings beyond. Let these times be the pain of g...
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Location: 1100 S Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480, USA
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Copping the Disguise

By Cliff Lake
  Copping the Disguise   Cop the disguise, Terrorize.   The smiles into eye unentered, Poison penmanship dripping gratitude barbed, Shared experience of shared invention, Doubled faces birthed of troubled graces. Manipulators manage, Missed messages mangled, Mixed messes meddled, Maimers most malevolent.   Cop the disguise, Terrorize.   Led astray by one’s own lead, The path accelerates, Going inward, Getting nowhere. Fly, you fools! Choose your misdirection! Onward, onward! Where have you gone to? Where are you now? Who are you now? You’ll never tell.   Cop the disguise.   Choose your form, What will you do when the label comes off? Unmoored association, Unmasked aberration, Unhinged accumulation, And above all: Constant customization. Can you still hide behind the shine When the chrome has got too soft?   Terrorize.   Presume, present, placate. Practice ...
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Location: 1100 S Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480, USA
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Contested

By Cliff Lake
  Contested   The rose in the garden stretching thorns, The sweet embrace awaits… An innocent lambskin concealing wolf within (my what big teeth you have). Access the displayed beauty, Win more than the proclaim. Experience warns: Not everything is as it seems, Caution is valor’s better measure, The thorns revealed, The teeth unveiled, Let the bloodletting begin. Poison points made, Does the other know? Education ensemble escape enactment, This game has no winners. What can one make of the separate claims? Depends on who they’re talking to – They never sound the same. Suffrage! they exclaim to one another, The refrain rings hollow third party. Cracked mirror reflections cast, Jagged perception presented. Exposition elapses elusive, Can’t be seen through selective confusion, Occam discarded. The thorn that pricks itself, The pelt that gnaws at the caught leg, The venom sweetened served, The side-eyes of the each, T...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Place

By Cliff Lake
  Place   There’s a dark place You never go there You can’t go there It’s too dark there Sometimes you look at it The dark place   Why is it so clean You haven’t gone there No one can go there You don’t go there   Because of the bad thing Because of the what did you do Because of the why did you Because   Why is it so clean You never come here You are here   Everyone saw it Everyone saw you They saw the what did you do One of them asked why did you They did not ask again None of them asked again None of them can ask again They always ask again   Why is it so clean No one can come here You are here It’s so dark here At the dark place But you can see You always see You can see the what did you do Until you can’t look anymore Then you don’t see   There is a dark place You never go there You can’t go there You always go there   What did you do? ...
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Location: Wichita, KS, USA
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Belief Brief

By Cliff Lake
  Belief Brief   You found comfort in the chaos crew, Gave meaning to your misconstrue. You let your reason come unglued, You let yourself be roughly wooed. Fantasy fiends you would have slew, How you narrowed your own view. You took the bait right on cue, How did it circle back to you?   They cobbled up the secret sign, Invented history to pine. Painted for you ragged decline, Dazzled you with new design. Set beasts to freely malign, Reminded they are not your kind. Gave you codes to nightly untwine, And what you read between the lines.   What do you perceive, What have you conceived? Do you live the dreams that you have weaved? Do you really believe What you want to believe, Or do you believe that you believe?   Complication, complication, This no longer a flirtation. Complication, consternation, This is you as a causation. Fantasy enacted damnation, A nightmare of your formation. Frustration, m...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Readying

By Cliff Lake
  Readying   I have spoken of wars long ago, But some knowledge I put aside – Now there is more that you should know, For we will again be sorely tried.   The black steeds and blacker brand, Axe and sword and pike and pole, To come against our sleepy land, And leave no inhabitant whole.   The ancient enemy returns, Trial and misery carried. We must face this calm and stern: Innocents are sorely harried.   Gloved hand, curled fist is unhidden, Oiled words spake by split tongue, Tribulation follows unbidden – Too long have our bows lain unstrung!   In dense wood or in hidden hill, Some are bonded with secret seal, They recognize they old ill, They polish shield and sharpen steel!   The token you too must now bear, The foe would have these, our demesnes! Together son we will now fare, He gathers his war machines.   I have taught you rod, fist and steel, Your arrow flies from deadly eye...
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Location: Wichita, KS, USA
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Conundrum

By Cliff Lake
  Conundrum   A puzzle I set before you: Why did this time go so astray? Who was elevated against odds: Crawling creatures that dark the day. Bums and rogues and criminals, Slopped their way up and hope to stay. See them prancing before you, Oblivious of their decay.   A conundrum some fail to see, Too beholden to iniquity. These uncomforting truths they must flee, The enigma ages ungracefully.   The lies that put them where they are, Their power maintained through hearsay. See them lined up against you, Arranged in tidy disarray. They remain envious of The things they cannot take away: Love, and light, and laughter, Saved up for a rainy day.   The conundrum fits too closely, Too beholden to iniquity. These uncomforting truths they must flee, The enigma ages ungracefully.   The query is already in your mind – It becomes clearer every day. Is it really such a mystery, Why it on our minds so we...
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Location: 1100 S Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480, USA
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Cold River (Psalm for a Dictator)

By Cliff Lake
  Cold River (Psalm for a Dictator)   Cold river running, Hot-blooded gunning, Cold-hearted cunning, There’s a cold river running.   A cold river is running through humanity, A love of hate built into the machinery. The empires built on inconstancy, Grand efforts cover for the discrepancies. Allow the nurture of degeneracy, And promote all the favored conspiracy. Disallow all claim of illegitimacy, Row the cold river running through humanity.   Cold river running, Hot-blooded gunning, Cold-hearted cunning, There’s a cold river running.   Pursuing genocidal insanity, While they are pursuing their mark on history. Disregarding description of infamy, Known as infamous is still a legacy. Require their wants met in immediacy, Serving themselves only; this dire fantasy. Consequences met with their hilarity: Flooding a cold river through humanity.   Cold river running, Hot-blooded gunning, Cold-hear...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Flight of Atlas

By Cliff Lake
  Flight of Atlas   Atlas flies, Helios beckons. What solitary sojourn Has set him on this course, His aura trailing after? What dark depth has spawned him, That he would make this glancing skirmish, And sail on unbowed, But not unmarked. See the sages cast their sight upwards! They will have his secrets! They have descried already his eccentric flight! They have calculated him hyperbolic! They have given him many names, But he answers no call. Atlas flies, Third of his kind, Or so we have observed. We watch from below, Though his speed outpaces our songs of him, He has not escaped our watch. Brave Atlas! 6 miles of him have traversed unknown arcs, He flies through our heavens, His banners flowing behind, Speaking no threat, Except to those mystics That seek to educate their purses. Atlas flies! Cast your vision upward then, That you may catch a glimpse, Before he hides behind the sun, And then emerges, And ...
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Location: Wichita, KS, USA
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Dry Tides

By Cliff Lake
  Dry Tides   Roaming sands across millennia thrum, Dry tides swallowing wisdom. Structures re-found in the wind, Did we begin again?   Failing towers, subdued walls, Do riddled texts describe the falls? Lost yesterdays gone dim, Have we begun again?   All that was known is unknown, All that was is not, All that was seen is unshown: Empire gone to naught. Tales lost beneath the waves of time, Peering into lost lore, Sing again forgotten rhyme: All of this has gone before.   Boulevards run beneath the seas, Statue peers but does not see. Broken spires unkissed by sun, Altar’s fires long undone.   Symbol and sacrament we cannot scry, Rehome upon the past not knowing why. Shallow praise of how far we’ve come: The gods we raise are just redone.   All that was known is unknown, All that was is not, All that was seen is unshown: Empire gone to naught. Tales lost beneath the waves of time, ...
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Location: Wichita, KS, USA
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Sweet Suppression

By Cliff Lake
  Sweet Suppression   Now don’t get the wrong impression, Or cave to base suggestion, What is this odd obsession, We must cease this weird procession.   Let us proceed with discretion, Nor make any true progression, Just move forward with aggression, And wield some sweet suppression.   A little sweet, sweet suppression, It’s like a discrete confession. How long ‘til complete repression? Have a taste of that sweet suppression.   We’ll get some House intercession, Get them to interrupt their session, Tell the base to try decompression, As we deny any transgression.   We are losing our self-possession. Engaging in wild self-expression, How do we manage repossession? We can start with sweet suppression.   A little sweet, sweet suppression, It’s like some discrete oppression. How long ‘til complete repression? Have a taste of that sweet suppression.   Avoid all questions, Make no concess...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Moments

By Cliff Lake
  Moments   Sunshine sparkle, one drop of dew, Temporary jewel, and many-hued. The winged chorus now greets the dawn, Will you stop to listen or hurry on? Too soon for traffic, or working noise, This juncture static, the instant is poised… To move off is tragic, distraction annoys, Such simple magic nature employs.   Take any moment in your embrace, Or simply choose to sit and wait, For the moment to happen to you. Such precious seconds lasting too few, Capture the moment and the moment is you.   The first flake falls, silence surrounds, Such is the first of winter’s sounds. Gray sky above, a shiver below, Escaping inside should the wind blow. Crystalline drift without a noise, To remember these seconds can be a choice. To move off is tragic, distraction annoys, Such simple magic nature employs.   Take such a moment in your embrace, Or simply choose to sit and wait, For the moment to happen to you. Such p...
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Location: Wichita, KS, USA
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Edge

By Cliff Lake
  Edge   Should you find the edge of the world, What would you then? One step forward and Might you be carried out of time, Swept to existence ethereal, Or to some terrible end, Or worse, Eternally fall through an empty cold, Frozen forever, And forever unfixed in space And time. Would you find the edge of the world, If it meant you must step forward, To be carried forth in existence, Forsaking your time here, To grasp for the ethereal, Or to understand terrible truth, Or worse, Understand nothing, And simply forever fall. Could you find the edge of the world, If the path were plain before you, Some step onward, Carried forth through time, Or beyond such contrivance, To become ethereal, Understanding things of terrible meaning, Falling beyond space and endings, Forsaking what came before, As if that once had substance, Or meant anything. Where is found the edge of the world, Will you step forward, Toward a p...
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Location: Wichita, KS, USA
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The Colbert Retort

By Cliff Lake
The Colbert Retort   Suppression, Repression, Transgression. The bully in the hotseat makes complaint and –   “FREEDOM!” they cry, Let the denigration mantras ring! – As long they sound their own chosen targets… God forbid an unwanted truth be spake – Disinformation bubbles are fragile.   Epithet, epithet, epithet, Disparage, defame, and deride, What fun when directed at people You already don’t like. Let no return be made! Let no fact reply! The thinner the skin, The deeper the pierce.   What night-call dares defy? What compare spoken in dare? What mock made in the night? What easy observation thwarts? Here is a tongue needing cut! Here is a voice requiring choke! Here are wings craving clip! A cull is called for.   Suppression, Repression, Transgression. The bully in the hotseat makes complaint and –   O ye corporate craven, Power is a granted thing, And knees begin to ache when b...
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Location: 1221 Avenue of the Americas, 51 W 52nd St, New York, NY 10019, USA
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It’s a Wonderful Secret Life

By Cliff Lake
  It’s a Wonderful Secret Life   “There is more to life than having everything…”   The past trails, Hidden, Yet popularized, Obscured, Yet glossy-pictured, Shadowed, And yet recorded under the brightest lights. Hype and hoopla sought desperate, Now suppressed in desperation. Is some monster lurking in the trailing past?   (Yes there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.)   Code the convo, Whisper in the public places, Say nothing and say it all, Discuss, discuss, Wrap it all in the pretty package, The matter may not be spoken plain, But the matter is spoken, And I know I will not speak it loud.   (Nor will I, since I also know what it is.)   Share and share, And share alike, Birds of the feather unmentioned. Left behind for other pursuits, Pasts inextricably tied. Darkness swallows some, Bright lights take others. Is there so much separation?   (We have certain things in comm...
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Location: 1100 S Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480, USA
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Flounder

By Cliff Lake
  Flounder   See the story evolution, Minions thrown into confusion. Produce yet more illusion, Guiding to the wrong conclusion.   See the lying expounder: Speaking to the echo sounders. Convoluting canard confounder, Wailing, flailing, see him flounder.   Flip-flop! The questions never stop, Find another frantic fantasy to shop. Hard stop! See more info drop. Gotta squash this story chop-chop!   Minions waiting, details mutating, What result from this conflating? Restructuring and restating – No one believes; so frustrating.   Fire one, defame the other, Too many outlets to smother! Around this one topic they hover, What else will they uncover?   Flip-flop! The questions never stop, Find another frantic fantasy to shop. Hard stop! See more info drop. Gotta squash this story chop-chop!   Just a regular guy, Telling a regular lie, This time you won’t get by, It’s going to...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Explainer

By Cliff Lake
  Explainer   It’s starting to feel everyone has gone hostile, You should know we have already filed the file. You keep on requesting – it’s not like we care, Why do you insist on poking this bear?   Maybe you feel that we near the brink, We do what we do, it’s our criming kink. No more of your thinking – just go with the flow, What you once knew is not what you know.   It was there, now it’s gone, It’s time to move on. What are all these conclusions you have drawn – You act like we are pulling some con. Ask again, give it a shot Everything that is, now is not. Forget about the evidence you think you have got: Everybody here is already bought.   Go ahead, peep the curtain, there’s nobody there, Take another look – we’ve got lies and to spare. With the courts in our pocket and the cabinet too, Ask again and again, what you think you can do?   Is anything real, is this a distraction? Close your eyes while ...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Descent and the Darkening

By Cliff Lake
  Descent and the Darkening   What is this waking you from your uneasy sleep? How long did it take this horror to creep? How were you to know what burden was in store? How much of this did you willingly ignore? Which of these acts are an exaggeration? How did they manage this horrific transformation? Did you not see this happen in your plain sight? Day never suddenly becomes the night.   But you ask, “Why has this trial come to our place?” The ordeal has again risen, Only wears a different face. But you ask, “Why me? Why here? Why now?” The scourge came upon us long ago, It is but ours to unallow.   Do not each look to blame one another, It was you each who forsook your brother. Shook your head, turned your back, chose to be blind, Do you think you will remain unassigned? The demand has come that you blindly agree, The demand has come if you wish to be free. The torment comes again to curse us all, We must united ...
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Location: Wichita, KS, USA
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Ward

By Cliff Lake
  Ward   They are in the high places, And assume seats of power. See their genial faces, While demanding that you cower.   The law that they would retrofit, So self-complimentary. Only they may benefit: Their final philosophy.   Beware these times, For trickery abounds, And evil way and petty grievance Are too easily found. Beware these days, For falsity is prized, And serpents and scorpions Are found in human guise.   Barricaded behind blast doors, Their minions played as their pawns, Hands still unwashed from bloody chores, Do not say that you weren’t warned.   General populace ignored: Such inconveniences. Watch the rule of might restored: Intended consequences.   Beware these times, For trickery abounds, And evil way and petty grievance Are too easily found. Beware these days, For falsity is prized, And serpents and scorpions Are found in human guise.   You begged ...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Stains

By Cliff Lake
  Stains   He needs a pulpit all his own, That he may look them in the eye. And a bigger microphone, That he may more loudly lie. He needs the camera in close, A fancy pen to sign the letter, He needs to be third grade verbose, He needs them to be forgetters.   And they start to see the things, The things that he is not. And they see the empty hands, The hands that they have got. And now he has Defrauded the frauds,   So, they begin to see The stains on their god.   He needs to sell the baubles, That his coffers do not run dry. He needs them to accept their troubles, He needs them to not ask why. He needs them to accept his promise, He promises everything, He needs them to accept his chaos, ‘Cause now chaos is king.   And now they see the things, The things that he is not. Now they see empty hands, The hands that they have got. And now he has Defrauded the frauds, Suddenly they begin to s...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Cleaning

By Cliff Lake
  Cleaning   Lolita Express, Flight log distress, Where it has gone Is anyone’s guess. The pedo list, How can it be missed, It was never there – You get the gist.   It’s been made clear: it once was here, But look how easy to make disappear. Smutty document, to the masses present, But now it is gone, let it go malcontent.   Lolita Express, Flight log distress, Where it has gone Is anyone’s guess. The pedo list, How can it be missed, It was never there – You get the gist.   There on the desk, names named grotesque, How to get rid of such a mess. Conclusion forgone, they won’t catch on: When they ask again, it is gone!   Lolita Express, Flight log distress, Where it has gone Is anyone’s guess. The pedo list, How can it be missed, It was never there – You get the gist.   Remember that special island, We’d fly there and get high and, It was our secret style and, Why did he ...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Letters

By Cliff Lake
  Letters   Dear Mr. Japan, do take this letter, So I can pretend that I am better, And increase the consumer debt or, Ride out all of this stormy weather.   Dear Mr. Korea, here is your mail, An economic coffin nail, An Oval office Independence Sale, A distraction beyond the pale.   We’re tearing it up and tearing it down, Watching it all get blown around. We are safe here in our fortified town, Close your eyes as the shit goes down.   Dear Mr. Doge, respond to this text, Step it on up, what to stomp next. You are in charge of the government wrecks, Placing the heavy boot on all of the Deep State necks.   Dear Mr. Cabinet, open the chat, Let everyone know just what we are at. Security these days has become such old hat, When the blame comes, you just fall flat.   We’re tearing it up and tearing it down, Watching it all get blown around. We are safe here in our fortified town, Just close your ...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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The Broken Promise

By Cliff Lake
  The Broken Promise   The broken promise: This is what we are, The broken promise. We held ourselves so high, But that was only our estimation – Now we swim with our sewage. Our systems aren’t just breaking, They are not just being degraded, They are being savaged, They are being inverted upon themselves, And perverted against us, All of us. We are the broken promise: A beacon pledged, Now stained in red, And glaring orange. A light that shines not for humanity, But that illumes our inequities, Our inadequacies, Our failure. We are the fading spark, Creating our own ash, To be blown about, By an ever more despairing wind. We are the ray that could have been, That should have been, That is no more. We are the broken promise: A voice against the din of oppression, A call to betterment, An exclamation of hope, and of fervor, A roar against madness and degradation, But we are become a screech, An expression of ...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Served

By Cliff Lake
  Served   The comfortable betrayal, The heavily feathered nest. The approval of the faithful, The lack of the people’s best. The mocking of the learned, The unconsciously averted eye, The loyalty perverted, The conscience no longer nigh.   Servant of the people, Do you serve yourself first? When all is said and done, Have you done your worst? Servant of the people, Serving up deceit, After all the spins you’ve spun, How will you keep your seat?   The conditional nay-say-all, The denials when too pressed. The need to downplay all, The needs gone unaddressed. The accusal of the watchful, The refusal to meet the eye. The obeisance to the fraudful, The allegiance to the lie.   Servant of the people, Do you serve yourself first? When all is said and done, Have you done your worst? Servant of the people, Serving up deceit, After all the spins you’ve spun, How will you keep your seat?   T...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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Exodus

By Cliff Lake
  Exodus   Selections on the shelf going small, No one left to make the haul. Piles of unused drywall, Masked men have answered the call.   Alligator alley prison wall, Florida man on the ball. Veggie absent from the stall, Wallets empty and still in thrall.   The unherded bovine, Unfinished roof short of skyline. The fruit rotting on the vine - They say the exodus is going fine.   Commodities going unpacked, What’s left found on the racks? Pallets unmoved on the tarmac, Leaving the grocery with the empty sack…   Forests left to burn black, Trails too overgrown to track. Hotel luxury gone unstacked, Which of you takes up the slack?   The unherded bovine, Unfinished roof short of skyline. The fruit rotting on the vine - They say the exodus is going fine.   Isn’t this what was voted for? Isn’t this what was in store? It’s getting worse, some call for more, Shortsightedness galore....
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Location: Wichita, KS, USA
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Dragon in the Garden

By Cliff Lake
  Dragon in the Garden   It was born in the land of queens, Its ruin should have been foreseen. A reptile sired by the vile, It makes good use of the corrupt machine.   There is a dragon behind the garden wall, And it claims not to be a dragon at all. But it belches and it burns, And steps on anything it considers small. There is a dragon in the castle keep, A dragon who is burrowing in deep. And it thrashes and it crashes, And it burns your land around you while you sleep.   It crawled Gotham, waste in its wake, Offered less a deal than a take. A love of wrong far too strong, On the make as long as you stake.   There is a dragon behind the garden wall, And it claims not to be a dragon at all. But it belches and it burns, And steps on anything it considers small. There is a dragon in the castle keep, A dragon who is burrowing in deep. And it thrashes and it crashes, And it burns your land around you while y...
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Location: Washington, DC, USA
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