Cut an unhealing cut,
One that still hurts us dearly,
As we ooze out the stuff of life,
Like a tree that's been pruned too severely.
Kill to conceal the killers;
Lie to protect the lies;
Set the rabble upon the righteous,
While cowards pretend to be wise.
Pile pretense high upon pretense,
Till the left and the right are confused,
Till front becomes back and vice versa,
And laws of all kinds are abused.
Arm to repel ugly armies
At the outermost reach of the realm.
Shanghai your callow crewmen,
With your morally worst at the helm.
Your power needs ever more power;
We knew what to do but forgot.
We could act as if nothing has happened,
Except for the reek of the rot.
Have suspects interview suspects
And justices flout the name.
Let questions give rise to more questions
Whose answers are always the same.
Your resolve is a firm resolution
To fight everything that you hate,
Corrupting the weak and unwary
Till nothing is left of the state.
Put fresh gloss upon Doctor Pangloss:
"That which can't happen did not."
Upsetters of this rosy world view
Can conveniently die or be shot.
War is like hell and you hate war,
But you do what you must do to win it.
So you take out a traitor or village
And whatever might be in it.
If we only could know what you know,
As sure as your aim is your vision.
If we could just see what we can't see
We would ply you with praise not derision.
There are secrets and then there are secrets.
Some bear a close kinship to lies.
Some can be dangerous weapons
In the hands of your agents and spies.
Evil is equally evil
In a misguided empire or cult.
Each sanctions unspeakable horrors
To reach an exalted result.
So you plot your transparent plots,
That would make of us all disbelievers.
Then liberty's would-be stewards
Become the biggest deceivers.
A free press is equally free
To report the truth or ignore it,
And when prophets are pushed to the mud
It can run with the mob or deplore it.
With opinions on worthless opinions
They give us enough facts to choke us.
With theories enshrouding theories,
The truth cannot come into focus.
Now we tread on our fancy treadmills,
Like a hamster spinning a wheel,
On a never-ending journey
In search of the land of the real.
You hope we'll decide that it's hopeless,
And the jackal can rest in his lair.
The chosen won't want to be bothered,
And the choosers won't bother to care.
We choose as best we can choose,
But the oracle has no voice,
And your cynical machinations
Keep limiting the choice.
Subvert to combat their subversion;
Pursue the great game when you've won.
To save your brave new order
Your work has barely begun.
David Martin