The Hollow Gospel

They chant his name, a hollow gospel

to the mighty orange they so adore—

Words building wars,

Paid for by the blood of the other.

Gold plated streets

Corroded and stained -

They called it freedom once,

a democratic right.

Now.

Broken.

The land of the free -

Always,

But for the blacks or the women

Or the poor, sure.

But that's by the by.

Finally.

Shows its true hue.

A hundred paper lies –

And,

a hundred thousand

Lives spilled for a dime

Now.

Caught.

Encaged or enraged

Divided

by the iron-clad grip

of a tangerine führer,

hell-bent on sacrificing

Lambs.

Slick and bloated under artificial light

The spolight is the thing,

No illumination -

the sickly stain of truth,

missing the point.

Again.

A hundred paper promises

for a hundred thousand

shredded dreams.

And tomorrow’s weight lies thick and heavy

like Chernobyl ash, burned and settling in -

Deep.

Rooted and

Inherent.

They call it victory

while evil embeds a hundred feet deep,

clinging to men -

too deluded to see

they’re wading, not walking.

Their comrade is no friend.

They call it strength - but listen,

How it crumbles,

They call it justice - but see,

how it blinds,

they call it a future - but watch

as it dies,

a kingdom of nothing, a throne built on fear,

and every name they gave it,

a paper lie,

repeated

one hundred times again.

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Originally for D.K. Shepard's latest 100 challenge. Today happened so now, maybe not: