O’ the tangled web
Woven for personal gain
Clouding our judgement
Until we find it’s too late
And regret has bankrupt us
This, the path we choose
Chosen many times before
Has not deterred us
We are creatures of habit
Believing a fool’s wisdom
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Honor among thieves
Missing from our politics
The lies keep coming
~
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Pondering things more now than ever
I’m finding out how little I know.
I don’t understand human nature;
Its incessant need for power,
Its unquenchable greed,
Its innate ability to hate,
Its thirst to subjugate others.
Look no farther than the news;
War is spreading at a rapid pace,
Our young men and women are sent to fight,
For what…our freedom?
Only true if freedom flows from a pump.
Their blood is being exchanged for oil,
Sounds criminal unless you are a capitalist.
Poverty is running rampant,
The rich are getting richer
While the middle-class drowns
And the poor are being mowed under.
Our children are sunk into debt
For the privilege of an education.
Education is not a privilege but a right,
Only a fool would think otherwise…
You laugh…
Well then, a fool I must be!
With no where else to turn
We look toward the government,
Corrupt, divisive, they are of no help.
No! Don’t dare pull the party card,
Your blind faith in either cesspool is deplorable.
Don’t think for a second that they care about us,
Most of us don’t have the money to buy that kind of loyalty.
These behemoths only tolerate us because they have to.
Lobbyists and corporations are their real audience
Purchasing the destruction of our environment,
Sending our jobs overseas,
Corralling wealth for the pleasure of the minority
All for the destruction of the majority.
We…are…expendable!
In the end, what do I know?
I know what this country…this world could be,
It wouldn’t take much,
Just a little love,
A little compassion,
A little humanity,
But then…I am a dreamer
Who just realized…
How little I really know.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
What have we become?
Both sides are fatally flawed.
We–the laughingstocks!
Politics are the cancer
Eating our nation alive.
Are we to perish,
Fading into history
Like Rome’s empire;
Remembered for its grandeur
Through its crumbling ruins?
Perhaps it’s too late,
Our experiment–a dream
May evaporate
Becoming just a footnote
In the annals of mankind.
~
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
We are living in a land of broken dreams and promises,
Those with means, rush to deny what should be obvious to the rest,
Ha! It’s the Land of Opportunity, for whom I ask?
Common is it for the common man to grow then stagnate,
Trapped in the tracks of his caste.
Not for lack of desire, but of meaningful opportunity.
Crawling up and up only to find the steps paved in jagged glass,
Barefooted from birth we are cut and scarred with each step,
No red carpet nor ivory towers lay in wait.
Instead pittances to pacify the masses are offered to give hope,
Promises that they too are worthy of abundance,
These promises ring hollow…leaving us with the taste of sand,
While the oligarchy scoffs from their luxurious boardrooms.
Cries to the state offer little relief,
As they themselves are counted amongst the elite,
Leaving the rest to scrounge for scraps in their rubbish heaps.
This was not the promise of this once great nation,
Old money, family money, dynasties, unfettered corporatism…greed!
Safeguards dreamt by the founders have been tilled and buried,
Bastardized by modern men with corrupt ideals.
Shall we once again embrace…
The monarchy!
~
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Think about this often
How petty we have become
Money, power, the big house; is this really important?
Money distorts,
Power corrupts,
The big house…a symbol of unnecessary opulence.
Those of unlike kind are frowned upon,
Lazy,
Bloodsuckers,
A drain on the system,
Is this what we have become?
Those with means holding us hostage,
Our station in life seals our fate,
Threatening to exterminate ones less fortunate,
All in the name of progressing their adgenda.
Civility and compassion tossed aside like so many feathers to the wind,
Cast out as unimportant,
So unnecessary in this capitalist system,
The needs of the few eclipse those of the many.
Talking heads and bureaucrats tow the line,
Telling us that this is our foundation,
Lies and deceit disguise their motives,
Their pockets lined with fools gold.
Still they profit at societies expense,
And we buy in to the hollow rhetoric,
Smiling and clapping as they spew their bile,
Blind to the parade marching to it’s own demise.
Our representation sold for profit,
With wealth comes power and the rise of aristocracy,
This was not the proclivity of our fathers,
Yet we watch it happen with hardly a noise.
Is this what is desired or desirable?
It can’t be…it mustn’t be our expectation,
Like mice we scurry away from that which is distasteful,
Rise up, speak up, demand your just due,
Tenacity in numbers can rejuvenate our future,
Forcing the tyrants to bow to our intentions.
Dom DiFrancesco 