Democracy

The fat puppeteer withdraws his hand
And democracy crumples, empty, to the floor
The day is over, no eyes on him,
He’s off
To immerse himself in sin and immorality.

He sighs. And grunts. And rolls himself over to sun his other side.

Another day
Another wife
Another car
Another life committed to dancing frantically below the line of loaves of bread
Shining like festival lanterns over the streets
Which will never change
And never be any safer for their bullet dodging children.

Where is our democracy now?
Where is the hope?
The nation is tired of chasing rainbows.

Lady justice lies bleeding in the spotlight on the floor
The winner struts proudly around her
Laughing
And the flashes flash
and bare truth is emblazoned across the sky

The writing. The wrong. And the incalculable disaster of the defeat.
The winner lands a final kick
His face twists with determination
Her face disappears

No one can hear her truth crying above the gluttonous crunching
Of the men in the sidelines
The men in charge
Filling their swollen guts
And their swollen desires
With whatever they can take from the land.

The men in charge
The men
Sit in a row all plump and ripe with their mouths wide open
Their foreheads glistening like empty bulbs
While the land coughs up and funnels the everything into them
Faster and faster
And all the while they cry out
As they grow
Fatter and fatter
Hungrier and hungrier.

The land collapses exhausted and emptied out
Men and women lie starving by starlight
Darker the night grows
And corruption the nightjar sings
A sad song which is as eternal as the tides
The words paint the truth like watercolour
So ignored, they’re practically immaterial
If only the song was sung while the sun shone

If only it was light enough to see

(to be continued)