“People shouldn’t be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
–Alan Moore, “V for Vendetta,” after Thomas Jefferson
Run, all you cowards
from the People
at the town halls
you thought would be friendly, adulatory chats
and instead turned into
satirical sketches starring you and directed by
Midwestern elementary school teachers
and mothers of children
who already know how to discipline
bullies and get what their kids need
from the State.
Run from the People you duped
into thinking some commie
was coming for their prescriptions
and killing their grannies,
and that the doctors and services provided,
the ones that saved them
from bankruptcy and death
by gouging, were somehow something different
that you now want to take back.
Run from the People
who’ve worked all their lives
only to see thieving bankers
walk away with their savings and homes
with your blessing and conniving,
while you threaten to also give them the money
saved from workers’ paychecks
for forty years
as though that belonged
to you and not the People.
Run, you bastards, like your ass is on fire.
If you fear the People’s harsh words
telling you to do your job or
it’s your last term,
just wait.
We are no longer a nation of farmers
with sharp tools in our barns,
but the last president,
despite your lies,
never came for the People’s guns.
–Valentine's Day, 2017, Harlem, New York—
