Welcome, to The Age of the Lie
This, then, was the news today. / It falls like a missile / over the heads of / innocent babies. / No one else is innocent. /Not you nor me. /Not the dead young men they call martyrs, /not the massacred men and the mutilated men
Monday, January 20, 2025
“When a clown moves into a palace, he does not become a king. The palace becomes a circus.”
1
Obsequious to Wealth and Power
we will now eat stale crusts
from the Oligarch’s table.
In good company, we are all,
one among the many, a grinning
multitude among the greedy dogs.
Oh, i should have been born
with a flag as my umbilical cord
for a world already beginning to burn
for here, beneath each endless betrayal
is the Revolt of the Oligarchs, this televised
Catastrophe of the Celebrities.
2
Now is the time to build
mountains within which
to bury our dead.
Now we will learn to live
the greedy life beneath
the table
among the hungry dogs,
among both the dying and the walking dead,
among the damaged, the deluded, and the damned.
The noise of normality here
is shredding my sanity.
Even the streets are no longer safe.
3
This, then, was the news today.
It falls like a missile
over the heads of
innocent babies.
No one else is innocent.
Not you nor me.
Not the dead young men they call martyrs,
not the massacred men and the mutilated men.
(Say nothing of the women
and their voiceless
children).
4
i was born with a flag
in place of an umbilical cord
for a country that does not exist yet
yet each day
i watch it burn
or lie buried beneath rubble.
Someone has planted a fiery cross
in the centre of its heart and
the ‘truth’ left here
starts to swing in the breeze
like dead boys hanging
from the trees.
The label always to read ‘made in america’.
5
i’d blow my brains out
but i cannot spare the bullet.
The one i’m saving for my old age.
The one that they say could travel
sharpened like a stake into the dark space
of this Empire of the Lie
this religion now of garbage and greed.
What’s left? i ask this heavy heart
where all hurt is now heartless and well-dressed
in slogans and selfish sarcasm
in lies, and treachery and business deals.
All that is left are rumours and
the whispering of madmen.
All that is left is the monotonous litany of the lie.
6
See how it wears an expensive suit.
No one here will laugh
when the emperor shits his pants in contempt.
No one is brave enough.
Not a single one of these toothless celebrities.
Not their wealth
wretched with war and starvation,
not all their politeness
polished in
phosphorus and pornography.
7
This is the country of the Lie
where the sun will never need
to set.
Here now is the time.
Listen,
listen, to it
ticking, ticking, ticking!
séamas carraher
Friday, 31 January 2025 – 17 February 2025
Image
“Johnson poses for a selfie with Elon Musk and a blurry Donald Trump. Diet Coke is also present”
Date 16 November 2024
Office of Speaker Mike Johnson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Reference
(22:46 ) “I mean Trump is a very limited intellect…(a) very limited figure
…he’s…he’s a Carnival Barker…” (Chris Hedges)
Democracy doesn’t exist in the United States: Chris Hedges | UpFront
Al Jazeera – 31, January, 2025
“When a clown moves into a palace, he does not become a king. The palace becomes a circus.”
Elizabeth Bangs – Turkish proverb updated
Notes
Monday, January 20, 2025
Second inauguration of Donald Trump
(White) “phosphorus”
Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre (2005)
Italian Documentary of American War Crimes in Iraq
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