Poem: Pimped Out Poetry Slam Five-Sided Story

EXCERPTED FROM “How The Revolution Started: Essays & Impertinent Thoughts “(Eggy Press).

This is not an insult. This is merely a minor reminder mainly meant to catapult adult minds toward new thinking

instead of the usual repeated drinking of the poisoned Kool-Aid propagated by the war-machine cult.

At least that’s the expected result!

 

This is not a jabbing joking jibe. This is not a fleet-footed treatise about bad vibes.

My proudly patriotic friends gathered before us, this is not an insolent insult.

Put plainly, for the most unenlightened dolt:

There’s no dictionary you could consult, no thesaurus or magic lexicon that defines the Pentagon as a paragon of peace.

More like the patron saint of newly militarized sheriff’s departments and local school police.

More like a massive factory churning out passive-aggressive offensives that inevitably end with disastrous consequences at distant addresses.

More like Hollywood and Silicon Valley’s most important ally

in comprehensively convincing the populous

that what’s best for us

is constant war

and murderous mayhem on foreign shores.

 

Excuse my jargon, but they try to make a trillion dollars seem like a bargain.

Here’s a harbinger of what’s to come: We will not kneel and we will feel lethal and there will be no cost too high,

because all would be lost without the KY

tube of lubricating grease on the gangrene gears of our economy,

stuck and stymied without an enemy to offend

or a homeland to defend from [fill in the blank],

pajama-clad jihadis, seductive Chinese hotties or imperialistic Russian oligarchs owning all the best Bugattis

– or Bentleys or whatever wondrous wheels are suitable

for those whose feudal evil is horribly immutable

and deplorably inscrutable — yet reliably refutable

by heavyweight wrestling champions of the world

who mesmerizingly specialize

in sealing deals by enthusiastically euthanizing unrepantant heels.

 

It wasn’t always war-around-the-clock.

Before Afghanistan and Iraq,

in the halcyon days before Iran and Vietnam,

a quiet calm fell between the bombs.

Back then, we buffoons assumed the United States was safe,

immune from the impending arms race.

After receiving the vaccine, we ought not to have got autism or measles,

or a feeble eating disorder in which the citizenry is feeding on fear, a diet of insecurity and pure hostility toward foreigners who don’t grok

the power of a Glock versus our stock F-16,

locked and loaded with a payload designed for mujahidin.

Uncivilized civilians with frivolous pavilions built from oil millions

who don’t comprehensively comprehend America’s transparently inherent right to bully

anyone with insufficient humility

or ironic mirth.

You know: the towel-heads and Commies who refuse to bow or kow-tow when confronted by the greatest country on earth.

 

Here’s a useful fact if you want to keep track

of the attack on truth maliciously instigated before you were born

but ‘til this day  still the norm .

Up until 1949 – World War II came before — what we now call the Department of Defense answered to its proper name: The Department of War.

Hence, the Orwellian locution. War becomes defense.

The most reliable solution to a public relations debacle

is to block all

calls for truth-seeking heat-leaking leaders.

Just neatly repeat the Big Lie ad infinitum.

Here’s one: You can’t negotiate with “terrorists,” you can only fight ‘em.

 

Most of us intuitively understand

in our glands, down to our pituitary,

that we can’t really “defend’ America by making war on faraway malefactors.

We know we have a predilection for aggression and an addiction to violence (and pain pills and porn and muscle relaxers).

Yet what we do with our knowledge doesn’t compute:

Stay mute and polite and keep nodding your head.

Nobody likes to be called “unpatriotic,” a detractor from the grand larceny that we call American Democracy.

If you need a reason to declare my reasoning treasonous, I’ll save you the time:

Every nuclear device is a war crime waiting to happen,

and every soldier in our military is a poorly paid mercenary being exploited by the salesmen whose quarterly profits will cost him his life.

Or sight. Or, if he’s lucky, PTSD, because, yeah, it’s a drag, but at least he can see

and he didn’t come home in a body bag, with a toe tag, wrapped up in a flag.

 

If you want to mend a wound, sometimes you can’t “stay tuned.”

You’ve got to tune out the noxious noise of popular culture

and dial in the simple joys of poplars and maples and firs, the piquantly pleasurable treasures of mulch (or compost),

of toasting the host of the universe,

flirting with the chirping birds

while moist dirt spurts from a formerly inert pile of detritus and flotsam

that got some

sun and some love and now nurtures the future with nutrients derived from decimated peanuts and desiccated daffodils resuscitating human ills.

On this fecund fertile growing ground, there’s no Army or Marines,

no drones or Humvees, no battle-ready death machines.

 

They say there’s two sides to every story. When we talk about killing other humans so our precious precocious atrocious Republic can survive,

the story sides are always five.

But don’t give up. No abdication.

Let’s add another wing to the dreary Pentagon – make it the Hexagon – and sing a hymn to angelic fairies

when we the weary

declare a new Department of Peace for our forlorn war-torn nation.