Hear the wooer's lies,
Glossy, silken lies,
Keeping steady focus on the erubescent prize,
A salesman ever smiling,
The charmer stalks his prey,
With petty praises piling,
Beseeching and beguiling,
He has his sordid way,
Taking, taking, taking,
His brute rapacity slaking,
With his squalid enterprise
Full of lies, lies, lies, lies,
Lies, lies, lies,
The slipping and the sliding,
The real intentions hiding,
The conscience overriding,
Lusty lies.
Hear the daily lies,
The comforting, comfortable lies
Of every conceivable size,
Digestible pabulum for the incurably bland,
For the small of mind and the glad of hand,
Hopelessly smug and indisposed
To look into the light,
With minds made up and closed,
They turn from truth exposed,
And seek the shelter of the night,
Avoiding with averted eyes
All they wish were otherwise,
Confused by the thinnest disguise,
They hesitate and temporize,
Then cast about and choose the lies,
The cozy lies,
The rosy lies,
The lies, lies, lies, lies,
Lies, lies, lies.
The smoothing and the soothing easy lies.
Hear the serpents' lies,
The concealed community's lucifugous lies
That eviscerate the social compromise,
Arrogantly thinking they needn't obey
The rules by which the rest of us play,
By word and by deed they chip away
At the country's very foundation,
At the base of our civilization,
Where, pray tell, is there room,
In a decent, law-abiding nation
For inveterate practitioners of intimidation,
Disinformation, assassination,
Covert opinion manipulation,
Agents' provocation,
And human experimentation?
Why must we simply assume
The national need for an occupation
That lives on equivocation,
On lies, lies, lies,
Black loathsome lies,
White, gauzy lies
That stupefy and paralyze,
While we meekly tolerate
Subversion of the Fourth Estate,
And those who send up warning cries
They slather with their unctuous lies,
Paranoia feeding,
Suspicion breeding,
Justice impeding,
Lies, lies, lies, lies,
Lies, lies, lies,
Clumsy, corrupting,
Ugly, disgusting,
Impudent, putrid lies.
Hear the despot's lies,
Enormous, encompassing, outrageous lies,
Essential tools to tyrannize,
Overawe, and terrorize,
Helpmeets of the bloody "isms,"
Generating needless schisms
In the world.
See them hurled
At the opposition,
See the flags of hate unfurled,
Hear the leader's admoniton:
"To the wall."
See the hatred mobilized
And everything politicized,
Turning simple wounded pride
Into massive fratricide,
Casting over one and all
A spell,
With bullying and bragging
And propaganda never flagging,
Taking, taking, taking,
Principled resistance breaking,
Making life a hell
For the chosen sacrificial goats
While the tyrant struts and gloats
Upon the stage
Of his own making,
Turning all the land into a cage
With no escape or privacy,
No individuality,
Just fear and coercion
And total immersion
In the lies,
The lies, lies, lies, lies,
Lies, lies, lies,
The ruthless, truthless, megalomaniacal lies.
David Martin
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