A Nation of One

His own minion in that nation,

He eats like a king, thinks like a stool.

All of his words are defecation.

His actions insipidly cruel,

He pounds his fist on the able,

Whips his army like a mule.

Hacksaw and hammer and Babel

Bang on the running heads

Of corpses on the embalming table.

He dreams of flowing Red,

Of flags and blood, this revelation:

The disappearance of the dead

And his vacuous exaltation. 

The Thief

The Capitol, a home of belief —

It doesn’t matter which — slowly decays.

The roof beams go first, nothing wooden stays.

Moss paints the stone arches in bas-relief, 

Images of dead and forgotten grief.

We live in roofless rooms with a sly thief,

Who steals, first our parents and eldest friends,

Then our useless youth, which he quickly spends.

Our music and books are replaced with fakes,

Our mirrors with odd faces, double takes.

Though I would not kill the thief if I could,

I defy him — plant flowers, kiss the wind.

I have children I hug; I’ve seldom sinned.

He can’t have my memories, bad or good.

Fall of Rebel Angels, detail (Pieter Bruegel The Elder), Sonnet #428

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My Human Disguise.

Did each cease to be an angel

The moment he or she rebelled?

What creatures were they when they fell,

Who spewed and farted, bled and yelled?

A kind of dead, not devils yet,

Before the rest of time in Hell,

They must endure a monster’s spell

In payment of their Master’s debt.

So men today learn to betray

Themselves and all they ever knew

As truth. They haven’t lost their way,

They’ll say. “We’re just making things new.”

The air is full of monsters’ lies

Falling like newly wingless flies.

Army Men Attack, Sonnet #336

The military objective: to knock the chip
Off the mysterious stone's shoulder, then tip
The whole evil mass over and bury its white
And gaping, bespittled gob out of human sight.
The soldiers, rigid with fear and umbrageous rage,
Are all innocent, young, exactly the same age.
Their memories are identical, none recalls
How his father fought the same war with the same balls.
Though they are many (the stone is ageless and numb,
Impervious to thought, its nervous system dumb),
They're dry sticks waved over dry soil by a dowser,
When what's needed is a six inch field howitzer.
They break against the stone, bounce back, and charge --
Small men to prevail over what is merely large.

The High Council (Mabuse), Sonnet #335

The high council deliberates in me,
Thirty-one wise morons who can't agree
Without a nod from their presiding lord,
Who's typically obliviously bored.
The peasantry shout in at the windows,
The scholars and lawyers from the cheap seats.
The aides are soft and unprincipled cheats,
And women left the chambers long ago.
I think never has indecision been
So richly rewarded, as conscious sin
Is rationalized in the name of change.
A vote is taken, the benches arranged
Again to reflect the switch of leaders,
Which elevates sixteen bottom-feeders.