Ode to Empire

Ode to Empire
[for John Hobson]
 
Wars without
pause
pride without
cause
Occupations
free of laws
mass murder
just because
no contrition
no remorse
all a prosaic
matter of course

Where self-critique
is heresy,
where, the scope
for apostasy?
not democracy,
nor autocracy:
but ersatz Realm
of Hypocracy

It's the Rule of the Hypocrite:
where the human
soul is split:
by bad faith
and suborned wit
possessed of every human sense
save the hallowed grace-
of conscience

forged their gaudy
Taj Mahals:
palisades, and
gilded halls
swathed in dun blood and
sweat of an entire
World's Precariat

So It Is:
and so It Was:
Endless Scourge
without a Pause
debauchery will stalk
the land
where guilt is writ
on every hand
yet still think it
blessed to live :
in dank bosom of
western civ -

O what immutable
parody
can frame its
sordid asymmetry?

© R.Kanth 2021
(my remarks reference the ruling elites,
not those who carry them on their backs)