Thursday’s Midway Carnival
by Odin Roark


Hearts bleeding black
prepare to flood
a nation's arterial life-flow
with make-believe,
while standing atop their Super Pac citadel
the non-disclosing cash cows
smile high above the dark clouds,
conspiring how clowns might rule again,
how costumed power,
stolen privilege
unearned opportunity
can deliver a stuffed animal prize
for the naïve playing the game.

Watching through the fence surrounding
digital delivery
a revolution of mind
needs not be hoodwinked,
need not engage in verbal violence,
mental seduction,
next-morning regrets.

But time waits not…

There will come a moment to blast up through
those clouds of distrust and power mongering,
revolt against gilded shackles of imprisonment
foxily slipped around certain cognitive senses,
locked in place with combinations invented
by a Roger of indubitable disgrace
with a side-car collusion with plutocratic institutions
manufacturing cotton candy for all fearful constituents,
a sweetly disguised greed delivered and administered
to further economic depression,
destined to lay waste a middle class,
the destruction of a nation's common sense.

Histrionics,
hubris,
rhetoric,
and fear
are being launched,
as the political midway invites all
to the funhouse of mirrors,
the roller coaster of infinite twists and curves,
and the inevitable regurgitation
when judgment swallows too much junk to ingest.

By November 2016
millions will face the step-off ledge
of election’s gargantuan bungee-jump
its tethered safety lines
likely threatened by those who would
tamper without remorse
having abandoned conscience long ago.

Effort

People

Honesty

Compassion

These are the remaining weapons capable of defeating
emotionless
lifeless
bloodless zombies
drunk on the 1% elixir.

There’s still time…

But just as blood eventually turns black with time,
and storm vapors become dark,
the clock is quickly winding down to prevent
a final opaqueness of greed's dark resolve.