φορολογικοί χοίροι
[t a x p I g s]

There are whores in your coffee shops, cafes and
Legion Halls
And sometimes they are raped by mankind
Suck up and eat live free and die

One by three the gremlins push from the back of the crowd
Screaming, “We’ll say anything to get the last you got!”
How much doesn’t matter anymore; only an estimated series of debt
Another island invaded and conquered by self submission
For a lifetime payment of every piece of gold on your soil
An offer for industrialization; corrupting the seeds of farmers
Is it not enough to drive people out of their achievements and impose
Mastered western techniques? Always flawed yet hardly
Criticized…
Tariffs and trading routes right through the center
Breeding syphilis and sorrow with promiscuous wit to manipulate
From beyond the Rhine; the river of black ships never cease
A parade of enslavement attached to a raving crowd
No dilemma destined to overthrow?
Just the answers of the tax pigs?!?
Hill climbers and house-sitters mingling with security guards
We’re right because you don’t know even know for yourself
National security; what’s that about freedom?
Webster’s got a whole new face on freedom!
Ecstasy through submission and sub-value
Magazines to dictate the accessories, do the colors come seasonally?
What’s left to sacrifice and keep a hand ready to help someone up?
No, rejoice with them once they’ve found themselves
Tied up in tears and tapering memories…
What memory of now?
What is left to pillage in this town…
The superstars claim a chunk and bunker down behind political lines
While the last dead rights of the democrats piss blood and spew urine!
Every chance of correction is turned outward and corrupted from within
We see our Government Elected CEO’s of our private incorporated fascist community
Equipped with state of police art polished shoes and charged tasers
The lion roars “SHOCK AND AWE!!!” a ceiling or two rumbles and everyone’s
Not too shocked, I am pretty sure they remembered what it’s like to have bombs
Dropped on them; what a precedence set since the big chill
Civilians are kept strapped to the AA guns…we are all shields in a battle
All enemies involved have brought their own script to this one; approved by the
Directors of course, Nothing short of an award winning performance
Producers gather beneath a giant owl and mock your greatest fears
SATAN!!! Creeping in the closet? Watching me sleep? Is he a ghost?
A monster? An illusion that is given credibility to surround the soul
And knife it in the back anytime you turn around.
Satan…angels and hell…do I have to still?
To please your god I have to lie to him?
I had hoped you’d want the best for him, or anyone who could give a damn
But I’m running low on deception. It stunts one’s growth if you rely on it day to day
You have to live out loud to live…truly live…we can’t hide our differences anymore
We have to encourage growth by the belief in the ability of collective individuals
Each covering the other’s blind spot; all exchanging emotions and medicating Conversations
All muted by a lack of ears! Had to send ‘em to the frontlines
"War effort you know…we don’t need the truth”

They’ll follow you all the way from Baltimore-Washington Parkway
They don’t have to have the proof or reason, just a motive and a badge
We are all trampled beneath an Anglo-Saxon alliance!
ECHELON is always listening…I’m just calling home…
To ask “Are you still there?
Or have you been taken away?”
We’ve always thought the wrong thing these days
Against a tide of polarized opposition; split at the creed/race line
Divided nice and neat, I’m finished being defined!
Posed as pastors the clergy of man speak in unholy tongues
Claiming the voice of god?
You, a man, are to interpret GOD?
Foolish Asher, selling your brother all over again…
Will Joseph be there to bless you with death?
Only took a year and three days to make it on the list
While the homeland was pushed into pockets and ghettos
The new Great Game for the League of Nations
All further moves picked up by the United Nations
Devouring Arabian flowers and spitting out rebellious vipers
Poised to poison the lot of those who oppose their right to be
I appoint no solidarity to those would keep them from home
Shoot them in the streets, and set their hearts ablaze
With a quasi-religious intellect of independence and holy dialect
I decide no fate of either, worry not oh Zionist, I hope the best for you too
You’ve jumped in a sea of leeches, and still act so surprised while you’re loosing blood
An international IV is running thick and pure with two-sided smiles and the handshake
Of old allies
Willing to punish the persecuted with opposing views and western definition
Crushing any ability to rely on traditional routes of social structure
Without consulting the foreign soldier on the corner who cannot speak a word
Who only thinks the worst and expects the cunning; trained to feel uncompassionate
Then bred with a sarcastic sense of humanity
“The colored ones act funny, not like back in Texas.”
As well as numerous other vacuous comments and commands

Loaded in the chamber ready to submit your anger
Pride in such a barrel, aim and swear off any connection
Occupation of destabilization; a taunting force to provoke more visitors
“Drag ‘em all in we’ll flush ‘em out!”
With carbines and firebombs, broken shells and green zones
Keep our friends in harms way, while the shadow command rests in
Empty palaces filled with the plunders of their errand boy
Big rattling beam from space can spot a fly, but it cannot read a face
Or track a pack rat through the desert

© 2006 Stephen Lewis

from the 2007 SmokingBaby Press publication "A Good Man Under the Bridge: Collected Poems by Stephen Lewis"

for more poetry from Stephen Lewis check out the SmokingBaby Press Online store at http://www.lulu.com/smokingbaby
or for the book
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Man-Under-Bridge/dp/0615153585/ref=pd_bbs_sr_...