Carl Sandburg, Updated
Washington,
DC
Policeman of
the World,
War Maker,
Stacker of Bodies,
Player with
Drones and the Nation's Fear Monger
Pompous, yet
Skittish, Officious and Unwelcoming,
City of the
Cold Shoulder.
They tell me
you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have
seen how you allow real leaders to be killed,
papering over the crimes with fabrications.
And they tell
me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is
true. I have seen destructive financial flimflams go
unpunished and rewarded with bailouts, instead.
And they
tell me you are brutal and my reply is: Your
lawyers
and lawmakers have told us that torture, endless
incarceration,
and even wanton murder—as long as it is
done
from the air—are all just fine.
And having
answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer
at my adopted city, and I shrug my shoulders
and
say to them:
You do
everything that is required to get yourself elected
and
come to our capital city and show me how you will
be
better.
Growing ever
larger with hotel-sized houses on former
farmland
in distant suburbs, here is a giant sucker of blood,
blood
drained from places where useful things used
to
be made.
Feeling as
sly as a privileged fox before an unguarded hen house,
clumsily overreaching.
Baldfaced
lying,
Scheming,
Stumbling,
Meddling,
fumbling, meddling more,
Plotting,
executing, covering-up,
Watching the
dust clear, clearing the way for new criminal
ventures
into dusty lands,
Securing
the realm by creating counterfeit insecurity,
Heedlessly
plowing ahead, making and ignoring real
insecurity
in every corner of the sucked-dry realm,
Huffing and
puffing out a chest that conceals a shriveled up
and
dying heart,
Coughing the
hacking cough of moribund consumption,
of
a sick old man raging against the dying of the light,
Uneasy in
his skin, skulking and suspicious,
Looking over
his shoulder for puppet-master approval,
Pompous,
Skittish, Unwelcoming, half-ashamed to be
Policeman of
the World, War Maker, Stacker of Bodies,
Player with
Drones and Fear Monger for the Nation.
David Martin