CliffSongs

  Ambition   Ambition. What is it but another path That ends where all roads must? Can you be more than what you are? Have you fulfilled the potential You are told to have? Do you control your fate? Have you escaped the box you were assigned? Or did you just find a bigger box, And painted it so that you cannot see the walls? Who has told you what to be? Or are you the influencer Speaking pretty promise Holding in your hands no substance, Just the allure of cash ungained. Ambition. It too ages, Becomes defined by experience, Failure or success, Promises skewed by circumstance, And at last, The mirror on your wall. Stasis comes to all things, Even the tides will slow. So, we head into a new year by the calendar, But the seasons do not know that. Fish will spawn in their proper time, The bear will leave its den by the moon, Or simple hunger. They will not ask of your midnight promises, They will not care to hear your...

  Dear Gregory   Dear Gregory Wayne Abbott, Greetings to you this Christmas Day! Truly thee hast celebrated the Lamb of God, By thy disposal of thine indigent elsewhere! Thou art wondrous in thy protection of thine own! Verily doth thee cast aside those that Christ despises! They that wouldst hunger before thee, Repugnant are they that wouldst cause thee discomfort! Drive them before you as swine! For they have dared to ask succor of thee, Believing themselves to be equal to thee in the eyes of God. Lay them down unto the godless Democrat, That they may show kindness to the wanderer, That they may feed the poor, That they may house the dispossessed who so offend, They that must be ungodly, For they have no gold to offer thee. O Gregory Wayne Abbott, Thy divinity abounds! Thou art indeed true to the blood of Christ, Or rather will be, When thy sins are totted up, Then will thee remember, Then will thee recognize, The eye of th...

  The People That Don’t Exist   Do you know about The People That Don’t Exist? No, you don’t. There’s one living down the street. Did you know that? No. There’s one working at the office. And one that works at the grocery store. Did you know? Maybe you waved at him yesterday. Maybe you said hello to her. Then they disappeared. Because they don’t exist. They don’t have birthdays. They don’t have birthdays because you never asked. They don’t have Christmas. Or Hannukah or Kwanzaa. They don’t have holidays because they don’t. And somehow you knew that. And knew enough not to ask. Some of them are homeless, yes. Some of them have houses. Do they have homes? You don’t know. It’s better that way. Because they don’t exist, not really. Not for you. They know they don’t exist. Did you know that? No.   No, you didn’t. I mean, how could you? Some of them are okay with that. Some of them like it that way. Some of t...

  The Tides   The tide came in today.   But I was running out of dish soap which was going to be a pain in the ass because I’m expecting guests and there isn’t time to go to the store because holiday traffic and there’s weather on the way and my sister was SUPPOSED to stop at the store on her way over but didn’t because she forgot or had some minor emergency with work or just didn’t goddam feel like it that’s what I think and maybe I can make it stretch but JESUS was it really that much of a hardship when she knows I already have my hands full and she knows what it’s like which is why she asked me to do it thi…   The nine years from 2013 through 2021 rank among the 10 warmest years on record.   Those goddam Republicans are going to waste everyone’s time for two fucking years investigating shit no one actually cares about or can do anything about and for Christ’s sake Matt Pedo Gaetz made a big deal about addi...

  The Leader   From the front lines he comes, He hasn’t the time for finery, Or excuses. He has a mission, Lives are at stake, And not just his peoples’. The enemy he faces dies too. The nations dependent on blood oil, They face a cruel winter, Made crueler by a despot, A maniac. A recidivist so intent on proving the horse is not dead, That he casts the unproven into the maw. He does this willingly, Unreservedly, Flagrantly. He does these things from a bunker. Coward. Meanwhile… His counterpart walks with his people, And in front of ours. He does so openly, Defiantly, Proudly. No coward. He stands with his people, He exhorts his people. He exhorts the world. He asks, But does not beg. He stands before us all. He is dressed as he should be: Ready.   Cliff Lake 12/22/2022 Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022

  A Different Sky   Under a different sky I could have…   I am here Being this person Walking this road Maybe it isn’t an answer It isn’t even a question.   Maybe plays in my head.   Under a different sky I would have…   This is now The future is yet fog When is a question Today needs answer What use is another when?   The past sometimes whispers in my head.   Under a different sky I should have…   Then is closed Here is the only possible Roads will diverge I can only walk on one Sometimes I stumble.   Under a different sky I would still be me. Perhaps the road does not diverge so much…   Cliff Lake 12/20/2022 Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022  

  A Cut   There is a cut that is too deep, Healing is but a laughing matter. Affecting appetite, affecting sleep, You cannot break what is already shattered.   The workday is hours as long as life, Nights are cold and long and emptied. Dreams are reminders of the wielded knife, Memories of me soiled and tempted.   Rotted, torn, and full of promises gone dead, I am less than I was and thus incomplete. I am reduced to a past life in my head, As my heart does little more than merely beat.   Get up, go to work, sleep and in between, eat. Produce nothing, inspire no one, And not knowing why I keep on my feet. I can’t get away from myself no matter how fast I run.   Where is the end? What of the bright promises of youth? What am I doing here? Where do I go? Why have I learned nothing? Why is there no truth? Why will I get up in the morning? I just don’t know.   But I will. I swear to God I will....

  Dark Soldiers Have No Pulpit A poem requested by my friend Ozzy   Waiting, watching, adding up the miscues, Coldly waiting for the moment when I'll collect your dues. There will not be a warning, You should have already known. But the time will come, with nowhere to run, And you will be painfully shown.   Dark soldiers have no pulpit.   Dark soldiers have no pulpit. We have only the night.   Have you hurt anyone lately? Hell, I already know. What goes around, comes around – You had better come around, Or you had better go. 'Cause I am standing back here watching, And if I don't like what I see, You will first answer to all others, Then you will answer to me.   Dark soldiers have no pulpit.   Dark soldiers need no pulpit. We need only the night.   You need to stop that fucking up,   ‘Cause innocents are being hurt. You need to stop that fucking off, Or you'll be sleeping in the dirt...

  The Chicago Price   It’s mid-December, not quite years end, Here we are forced to tell this tale again: Chicago this time, and just before Yule, Just another shooting of children at their school.   Benito Juarez High School, classes letting out, One teen pronounced, another in grave doubt. Two others with injuries, they will probably live, But a single life taken, is one too much to give.   So now the rallying cry will be taken up again: “Give everyone a gun, or two, or five, or ten!” Why is it that proliferation is the cure? How much more of this illogic will helpless children endure?   The more the guns, the more the shots, the more that people die, It’s that simple a chain of rationale, you don’t even have to try. But good ol’ Ted, and Marjorie, and simple Bobo too, Will take their pay from the NRA so they can sell the lie to you.   That arming teachers and locking doors and teaching children fear, Is the o...

  Stumbling Ugly   Gasping, grasping, Drunk on power it no longer has, It flails and curses those it reviled, Loyal only to its own lurid appetites.   Failures, flounders, Tactics fall, What ghostly laughter follows it now? Petty mirth from inside the camp.   Screams, squeals, Accusations of treachery, Taught too well, too long, Now actioned in counterplay.   Plotting, planning, Projecting parts it played, It rails against the justice seeking, Unwilling to fathom the price that must be paid.   Defend, destroy, These only it accepts, No recompense made, No apology it proffers.   Slinking, sulking, Still, it claims victory, Even through dwindling asset, Even from failed quest.   Cohorts, companions, Compelled to admit conspiracy, One by one they quit him, Forced to abandon the illegitimate sovereign.   Canvass, crusade, It profits less, A cash cow milked too hard, B...

  The Lost Song   Can you hear the trees sing? The creaking bough, the rustling leaves, A trunk’s comment when swaying in the breeze? Accented by the percussion of the clambering squirrel, And the piping of the nested bird, Can you hear the trees sing?   Are their voices choked by belching smokestack? Stony pipes pouring filth into the skies, A celebration of industry drowning nature’s chorus, Smothering voices too soft for undiscerning ears? Why don’t you hear the trees sing? Or do you hear the earth cry?   Have you been deafened by roaring engines, Screaming overhead, rattling in the street, groaning on the rails? Are you more attuned to the vendor in your pocket? Or have you merely stopped listening? Have you heard the earth cry? Can you let the trees sing?   Must you drown them out in the winds of climate wronged? Battered nature pushed to a limit we don’t truly know, A force we cannot understand yet, Thus ...

  Where in this World   Where do you find your hope under the wintering skies? When the steeled clouds lower, And the north winds harsh you, Frigid and too damp to bear their load?   Where can you find promise of truth held forth? Not in the words of evil men, Twisting the rigor of law to their liking, Coercing the weak-thinking, the unknowledged , The lunatic and the bloodthirsty all, Eager lackies and toadies hoping for crumbs from the table, Though they be soaked in the blood of their brothers. No light will be found among these, Those days have passed.   Where do you seek for endurance in faith? Among a clergy stained with greed, With lust for power and the avarice of the cheaply bought? They no longer aspire to a higher calling; Gold has tweaked them and they have fallen beneath its weight. They too now have the scent of violence in their nostrils, Wielding heavenly promise as a bludgeon. They fail you with borrowe...

  The Extra Step   Those almost winter afternoons, The air a bit too crisp. The traffic swallowed by silence. Everything echoes. Nothing muffled by leaves long fallen, Long collected, Long blown into gullies and hedges uninhabited. Only your footsteps sound, A staccato amplified and repeated among darkened houses, Not yet lit against the night. The cold sharpens the edges of racket, Too loudly do you hear your breath, Your footsteps. The sun seems to speed to the horizon now. Things may begin to bend.   It is the twilight time. The not-dark. The not-light. It is the indistinct time. It is the slip-shadow time. It is the maybe time. It is not your time.   There! The extra step. It falls out of sequence. Your half-turn does not reveal, Only causes you to step out of sequence, It is imperative to regain the rhythm.   A little faster now? Yes? Is that wise? Is that necessary? You know these paths,...

  Mind Echo   The difference between what I want and what I am. The place between what I know, and I haven’t read. The sound of the things I allow to be heard, And those I don’t. The smell of the rot I will not see. The glare of the things known I close my eyes to.   These guide my steps, my stumble. Do not see me fall – I have not fallen.   The bruises of mistakes I will not remember. The cracks in the shield I do not admit. The tears I do not tell, And will not cry again. The feel of caresses unnatural, sought in earnest. The tales of the unheard and left behind.   These my unsteady foundation, my leaking hull. Do not see me fall – I have not fallen.   Where on this rock is my rest? Where is the void I cannot fill? Where is the screaming banshee I hear always? Where is the echo to my own?   The shatters of promises I did not keep. The failures of plans untried. The dreams I did not reach f...

  The Mess in the Media   The petty thing that crawls through the kitten pictures, A bottom feeder, It looks for the tender spot, Sowing rancor and disgust, It revels in the discord.   A meme, An insult, An argumentation full borne of ignorance, These are its tools, its pricks, and prods, It’s here for the laughs.   Substance is anathema, proof its poison, It will suffer no substantiation, A document causes it to turn and bite. It will have no order, Chaos is the goal.   It reviles, Accusing those that refute it of its own sin, Becomes the victim at will. Dare you to confront it, it will hunt, Paying petty persecutions for your audacity.   Ignoring it leaves it free to roam, Making havoc on those less willed than you. Raise your shield if you must, It will find softer soil to muddy, Easier flesh to jab.   Kick it, have it kicked, Will it return in other guise? Will it seek you once mor...

  The NRA Anthem (As sung by Ted Cruz and Lauren Boebert)   Now children hear us, the NRA preachers, There’s a solution for leftist creatures, We can’t let them advance all their features, What happens when we start arming groomer teachers?   Lefty won’t let you protect you and yours, He would have all of us down on all fours, Let’s help him fill up the seat of his drawers, AR15’s on all shelves in all stores!   Buy a gun, It’s the American way! Buy a gun, Blow the bad guys away! Buy one and be sure That your home is secure, Buy a gun, Then another today!   These communist, fascist, socialist thugs, (Buy a gun) They want to replace us, these leftist slugs. (Buy a gun) They’re all pedo-groomers, they’re all on the drugs! (Buy a gun) It’s time to wipe that smirk off their self-righteous mugs!   BUY A GUN, And help fight off inflation! BUY A GUN, Reduce the population! When demand goes bye-bye, ...

  Midnight At Club Q   It happened again, it happened in Club Q. Just a place in Colorado Springs, something to do. A Saturday night that most would survive, A Saturday night that claimed the lives of five.   A long rifle blazes, an AR15 style, A 22-year-old gunman, what has caused his rile? What is the motive, were they people he knew? Or was it religious fervor, hatred of LGBTQ?     No one should have to die because of who they dance with, No one should have to die because of who they kiss. No one should have to die because of who attracts them, No one should have to die for reasons like this, But they do. And they have. And they do.   A nightclub where they felt home, it was their safe space, Now a killing floor, it is forever defaced. What makes a man so disrespectful of any life, what makes him kill? When do we stop the slaughter, it is on all of us now, this ill.   No one should have to die beca...

  O Caffeine!       O Caffeine! Thy stimulative properties evade me as the slug evades the pillar of salt. Have we not been friends? Have we not shared many hours of drudgery? Fail me not! My motivation comes from thee; Fill me once again with thy falsely promoted energy levels. O Caffeine! Thou art my bladder filling companion. Raise my consciousness temporarily as you once did. Wasn't that yesterday?   Cliff Lake​ 5/3/2015 Sometime in the early afternoon. Copyright © Clifford Lake 2015

  Rosie   She stood in front of me wearing a molten dress. My tongue was all tangled up; I remember sayin’ some mess. She put her hand on my shoulder, pointed me at the door, Said, “Less’n you have your own money, don’t come around here anymore.”   I went out and found some shitty work the very next day. Showed up on her doorstep with a pocket full of pay. She was just steppin’ out with some dude big as a bear, Said, “Less’n you can drive me downtown, you ain’t gettin’ anywhere.”   Why you treat me so harsh, Rosie dear? I thought I made my intentions perfectly clear. I’m not tryin’ to make you all mine, I’m just tryin’ to get me some time.   I came around again some time the next week. That big bear dude put a knot on my beak. Rosie looked at me with my back on the ground, Said, “Less’n you learn to keep your feet, you’re gonna always be down.”   Chorus, repeats…   Cliff Lake 4/3/19      Co...

  Leaf   She never knows just how to say goodbye. She just knows she needs to feel a different sun. She still won’t be able to give a reason why, She just knows when it is over and done.   Chorus: She’s just got to fly, fly, fly! No looking back, Not even in some far-off by and by. This is the way that she can simplify… And you can’t blame her – she’s too good for that.   (Jam)   She travels light; nothing to tie her down. Like a leaf in autumn she just breezes on. No destination; just some other town, But she’s left a mark and you wear it like a crown.   ( Chorus, jam. Possible slow outro)   Cliff Lake 4/2/19 Copyright © Clifford Lake 2019

  Sailor   I run through my emotions as a ship in a hurricane, Blown on winds bought with my trust. Sailing seas of passion squandered in familiar port, I am ungrounded.   Gulls screech above and around me; Their petty screams grate temporary woe. Pitching and yawing my way through each day, Nights storm blackly.   Rest is come from busy distraction- Idleness rocks this vessel in a prisoned tempest. The mind and the heart wrangle in furious opposition, I am cycloned.   The sky above is the wrack and wreck of karma unabated, I am and have been my own cause. The sea below is contemptuous of travel. I sail on.   Cliff Lake 12/26/2014 Copyright © Clifford Lake 2014

  See Don Run; Run Don, Run   Now see here Orange, there may be a reason that shirt collar feels a little tight: It’s not just hamburger weight, looks like someone may have you in their sights. Oh, I know, you think it’s the holidays and no garland can hang you now, Looks like Justice has taken the blindfold off; she’s coming for you and how. And if you’re thinking that the counsel ain’t that special and your future still is vague, Let me point out that this motherfucker coming at you is coming straight from the Hague. Post one up again on Troth Senchal, give us one or two more cents, Let it all hang out babe, you’re just providing more evidence. Where’s your Hannity now? Where’s your Murdoch when you need him? This is what happens when you put up shitty candidates now, the Repubs know you can no longer feed ‘em. Think you can hide behind a presidential campaign? Think you will continue to get by on rallies where all you do is complain? The glory da...

  True Dream   I had the dream about The Machine again. The Machine is both artificial and alive. The Machine is insatiable and invisible. The Machine is bloodless and bloody. The Machine is corrupted and corrosive. The Machine is everywhere. The Machine lights the night sky in lurid yellow, In fire and flash, in neon and in naked violences of artificiality. The Machine is in your living room screaming: “PRODUCT! PRODUCT! PRODUCT!” The Machine pacifies you with this lullaby, “PRODUCT! PRODUCT! PRODUCT!” Have you bought? Will you buy? The Machine has eaten you. The Machine has eaten me. Hear it thump and roar! It is outside your window. It is under your bed. The Machine feeds you, Most of us get just enough to wake up tomorrow, To stoke The Machine again. To buy PRODUCT. To be PRODUCT.   I had the dream about The Machine again. The one where it ate me. The one where it ate you. The one where I am The Machine. Th...

  Do You Have the Time?   Where has the time gone? You look between the sofa cushions: Remnants of yesterdays, Stale reminders, Reduced to crumbs, ashes, and trash. Were you effective, Or just another consumer - Endlessly plodding the repeating track, Supporting a system made for everyone else? What victory can you claim in this? The machines soon obsolescent, The housing almost up to code, The food poisoned, The water slimed, The air clogged, All so you can strap on the VR goggles to escape it. What victory is there in this? Climb back on the treadmill, Vacation is over, Share your digital representations as proof that you were somewhere, Anywhere. As long as it wasn’t here. Is that where the time has gone? Is it in the cloud? On a flash drive? Have you saved it there to make room for the drudgery? Pixels more real than memory, Affirmations of your lack of capture, Now free to return to the construct you neither own,...

  Proposals (Proudly blocked by the cretins at Facebook)   I think I’ll kill a few hundred thousand people today. That’s what I do to grow my ego. I will use planes and bombs and kill them. I will use tanks and rockets to kill them. I will use thousands of my own people with rifles and knives. Some of them will die in the process but what the fuck? Gotta break a few eggs as they say.   I think I’ll poison the air today. That’s what I do to make a profit. I will use trucks and drills and ruin earth. I will use explosives and chemicals and blight water. I will underpay thousands of my countrymen. Some of them will be exposed to harmful toxins but what the fuck? I’m doing this for my kids is what I’ll say.   I think I’ll corrupt a few thousand minds today. That’s what I do to maintain dying standards. I will use broadcast networks and celebrities and warp them. I will use rhetoric and the churches and inflame them. I will enra...

  Stupid World   Stupid world. With all its existence and stuff… What do we think we’re doing here? Sure, we dig big fucking holes in the ground, We’re GREAT at that… Of course, that’s killing us, And most of the animals we share the planet with, And the trees, And the fish, And the birds, don’t forget those! And the whole ocean too. But we’re melting all the glaciers into it so… That should help. And then there’s the air: On a good day you can even see through it. And what about the rock we live on? Oh yeah, we’re fucking that up too. You got yer acid rains, And yer chunky air, And yer extreme weathers, so… Yeah… But the good part is the plastic, right? In the water you’re drinking, In the food you eat, In the soil you walk on, There’s even big fucking islands of it in the oceans so we can track its progress… Stupid world. With all the existence we’re trying to end. Too bad we won’t be around to see THAT. The sun is ...

  What Is   You ask what it means. Because how can it mean nothing? How can there be no purpose? How can this be all there is?   You ask what this is. What is its meaning? What is its purpose? What if this is all there is?   You ask what you are. Do you mean something? What is your purpose? What if this is all you are?   You ask what you are doing. Will it mean anything? What was your purpose? What if you have done all you will?   You ask if there really is a meaning. Well, what do you mean? Have you sought out a purpose? Will you at least do something?   What will that mean to someone else? What if all you have to do is mean something while you are here? Will that give you purpose? What if that is all you need to do?   You ask why you are here. I ask what you mean. Living is its own purpose. Doing some good can be enough.   Cliff Lake 11/5/2022 Copyright © Clifford L...

 All In There was never really any choice. They revel in violence. They mock disability. They worship greed. There was never really any choice.  They fantasize copulation with children. They strangle information. They oppose any god than the one they cannot emulate. There was never really any choice. They daydream revenge. They foul the planet. They are proud of the kill. There was never really any choice. They foster destruction. They revel in waste. They exalt any lie that harms. They cannot be cured because they don’t want to be. They cannot be educated because it exposes them. They cannot comprehend the hurt they do to themselves. There is really only one choice. We will choose in spite of them. We will choose because of them. We will choose because it is the best thing for them. There is really only one choice.  Make that choice. Be that choice. For all of us.  Cliff Lake 11/2/2022 Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022

  The Unmaker   It had come from the Outside. Created from the never-dead hate That gnaws on itself.   Life and Light were the enemy, They were the everything it could never achieve, A Thing of failure and the absence of promise, A rage that had no focus, But only was. It would deny itself if it could.   The blue jewel beaconed, Fired with spirits of hope and help, Life was there. It ravened at the thought. It lusted for destruction, death, depression, doubt. It hurried.   At first it assaulted with fires and calamities, Earthquakes that changed continents, Diseases carried by the smallest among them. Still, they rebounded, Rebuilt, Resumed.   They drove it back knowing it not, A confidence in their own aggression. And therein lay the key…   Weapons it gave them, Knowledge of their construction, Faulted understanding of their world, Of the physical place they inhabited, Toys for dang...

  Ownership   Today I owned a lib. Maybe he was a antifa. They never tell you when they are. I said TRUMP 2024! I felt some swelling in my pants. But that’s what happens When you eat too many tacos.   Today I owned a pedo. Maybe he was a fascist. He did not have a MAGA hat. He was reading to a child. I said GROOMER! The child called him “Dad.” Whatever that means.   Today I owned a commie. Maybe he was a BLM. Maybe he was a mail-in ballot. I said WOKETARD! Then he put his sticker on. It said, “I voted.”   Today I owned the Democraps. Maybe they were a science. They asked me to produce documentation. I said FAKE NEWS! Then they showed me video. I had to turn it off before I learned something.   Today I owned the left. That’s what I keep telling myself. That’s what I have to keep telling myself.   Cliff Lake 10/29/2022 Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022

  Fall Ye, Fall Ye   This is the story of the mighty Kanye, Who tried to promote him exactly the wrong way. He jumped on a stage where he acted all miffed, Dude, at that awards show, you just weren’t too swift.   This is the story of the proclaimed Yeezy, Your divorce battles left too many queasy. Now E! and People might be up for the drama, But you coulda done better by your baby’s mama.   This is the tale of the embattled Ye, Who struggled to keep lit up on marquee. He tried to appear as an artiste heretic, But really man, you’re just Anti-Semitic.   This is the story of nutso Kanye West, Whom now so many attempt to divest. He claims that his mental state is a real hassle, That’s not it, Kanye, you’re just a real asshole.   Cliff Lake 10/27/2022 Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022    

  Interata   How do you see yourself? Through spectacles reddened by chance, By tint? By temper? By tears?   How do you see yourself? Through age-spotted mirror: Reflection of mistakes made, Mistakes held, Mistakes forgotten?   How do you see yourself? Through the tales of others, Praises taken, Scoldings accepted, Remarks overheard?   How do you see yourself? By numbers accented with dollar signs, By the accumulation of acquaintance? Of children, Of lonely sigh spoken to the night?   How do you see yourself? Do you look from without? Do you look from within? Do you make compare to that which you aspire to? How do you see yourself?   Would you have us see you as you do?   How do you see yourself?   Cliff Lake 10/25/2022 Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022

  Our Day   A fading chance, their failing dance, Ritual held over from imperfect past. Sword held high, blinding clouded eye, Opposing a future arrived at last.   Ragged remnants of imagined glory unlived, Marching in lockstep to defeat the specter, Of notionate monstrous elector, Of dying philosophy, they the protector.   Ear deafened by politician and priest, Constantly informing whom to like least. Enemy constructed of wind and mirror on the increase, Succumbed they are to spoken disease.   Armed and arming: oligarchy’s lance, A rabbled army for high finance, Willing to fight with ne’er the chance, To see their own ethereal fortune advance.   Blinded they are by the fogs and mist Of remote rulers making unfaithful tryst Wielded as a blinded, blunt, and bloodied fist, To pound down those that would resist.   Prided now they are of disinformation, Argument unreasoned in negation, They have pur...

  No Loss?   Dusting off old lies, They scream of contrived assault. An unseen enemy made real by utterance, No need for substantiation, Volume solidifies. A trick writ for the unworthy, With unstung hand, And unbent back, Unskilled in anything save usury. Lessons from the past go unsung, Ignorance is more useful, Exploration is made strange, A new catechism learned by rote and repeat. Sour blood untasted, Flowing only in unreal cinema, Histories told in plastic, Or lowly electron, Easily ignored. A new Holy War is risen, The enemy clear, The outsider is not with us, And must be overcome. They march in ragged formation, Raging over imagined threats undefined, Except by otherness. They practice their clumsy thrust, The unskilled battery, Dreaming of the day their violence reaps gore. They believe they long to wade through bodies strewn, Horror long past their understanding. They are informed of an enemy, Be he fr...

  Dehumanation   Raging against inevitabilities they can barely pronounce, They seek to make proof through violence, Doling unearned vengeances, Against those they already oppress.   Pronouncing inequities, They make attempt to elevate themselves, While wallowing in filthy degradation: Sins they will not allow others.   Dangerous toys they acquire, Undertaking betterment by way of suppression, Enmity is their religion, Greed their deity.   Unnerved they are by intellect, Ashamed that they are so easily seen, Naked to innocent eye, Exposed by accuracy and reality.   Untruths are spun into myths, Myths are woven into dogma, Dogma is accepted as canon, And dogma informs indoctrination.   Lost now in emotion-fired doctrine, They march against all those undoctrined, Enemies found anywhere outside their creed, Worthy only of elimination.   Destruction is their last hold, Persuasion long b...