Claptrap

“Composition with Three Male Figures” by Egon Schiele

party faithful
automatons
steal our
good faith
mugging trust
sleight of hand
misdirection
in each retail
handshake
each devious
pose struck
for lens of
the camera
sly insincere lips
drip with stale
dusty words
pious claptrap
when anxiously
clamoring ears
demand answers
when outraged
grieved eyes
demand actions
the commonweal
heart needs real
heroes not hacks
needs their pledge
to real truths
and this agonized
era of murder must
once and for all
be seized kicking
and screaming
by hands of
uncompromised
moral authority
brought to a
final and firm
denouement

Peace Through Strength

“Courage Bolstering Strength” by Carolyn Asha Young

resolute posture
gunbarrel cold to the touch
strong voice of silence

Uncompetition

“Don’t Hide Your Light Under a Bushel” by Ned Cartredge

(Originally posted here June 2013)

 

 

irrational fears

obtain inane policy

duncing champions

inhibiting excellence

with corruption of prizes

A Crying Shame

“Face of Unhappiness” by Frieda Bruck

 

slobbering victims
of doctrinaire radicals
die discontented

Tomfool

Illustration from
tradeforexmakemoney.co.uk

suckling at tumescent teats
of campaign contributors
government bails out failed
business a politics lewd with
self-serving expedience rising
to flood-level wholesale
corruption anathema to
institutional clockworks of
capitalist economics by
transferring marketplace
risk from those private silk
pockets who willingly play
in the commerce of chance
to beleaguered hunched
shoulders of unwary citizens
taxpayers living their careful
drawn lives by the numbers

the putative leaders who
practice such brazen chicanery
undermine risk-reward ratios
demean the importance of
prudence and license the
profligate ill-made transactions
that steepen the crashing
decline of great nations