Lip Service to Liberation

Our generation has no reason to ask,
“How could people tolerate slavery?”
because we are tolerating it right now.

Our generation has no reason to ask,
“How could people tolerate genocide?”
because we are tolerating it right now.

Our consciences are seared.
We are lip service to liberation.
The gulags are met with our conceit,
our exhibited laundry of criminology
and brokered investments in veils.

Let your children be watched
by your partners in crime,
your mother, your brother the
constabulary making a shaft.
The school pencils in backpacks,
with room for laptops and guns.

You did this. You wanted it.
You do now. You allow it.
This is of your making.
You are the reason
for all this suffering.

But go on your weekend
cute-meet march, in safety.
Condemn the collective
that puts itself in harm’s way.
In service and devotion
we have lived up to our evil gods.
An operative, transactional
marriage with no tools to create.
The only sign of progress will come
when the wheels of the chariot abate.