A summer of blood and despair

The government is willing
to do harm to your enemies
one day
when your enemies are gone
it will come for you

People beaten and disappeared
Pinochet has come to Portland
They’re the “bad” ones today
so you say it’s okay

fabricated boogeymen
an American way of life
Black, Italian, Irish, Jew, Hispanic
communists, socialists, gays, liberals
Who is next for your cage?

You think it won’t be done to you
they have yet to put you in their sights
Even Ernst Röhm thought he was safe
but the long knives came for him anyway

How long before you’re Philando Castile
complying
dying
because a pig smells weed

it’s only tyranny when they come for you
but you’re already on a list
you just don’t know it yet

unmarked, unidentified, unknown
in kevlar vests with automatic weapons
snatching citizens
they’ll make sure you’re dead
and legally they were never there

the kakistocracy needs to be fed
rubber-stamping the whims of a would-be dictator
the “good people” cheer
as “very fine people” are crushed by the throat
silencing their voice

Hate radio pulsates through the veins of the good people
OANN, RT, Washington Times
full of supplicants to the infantile “king”
Ignorance prevails
as their sole desire is to destroy those very fine people

Valery Legasov warned us
our lies incur a debt to the truth
that debt now needs to be paid

Dictators rarely die of old age
the American Gestapo cannot prevail
a wall of moms have started the call
a naked woman performed a ballet
What song will you sing before the jackboots come to town?

The summer isn’t even over
but look at what we’ve endured
when will it end

it’s time to jail the orange clown and his insane posse
their brutality has been embedded our souls
in the bloodied faces of the innocent
it will be remembered tomorrow
in the trauma of our memories