Ode to Hegemony

 
[for John Hobson]
 
Wars without
pause
pride without
cause
 
Occupation
free of laws
mass murder
just because
 
No contrition
no remorse
all prosaic
matter of course
 
*
 
Where self-critique
is heresy
where the scope
for apostasy?
 
Not democracy
nor autocracy
but ersatz Realm
of Hypocracy
 
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 the
blood and sweat
of the World’s
Precariat
 
*
 
So It Is
and so It Was
Endless Scourge
without a Pause
 
Debauchery stalks
the Land
where guilt is writ
on every hand
 
Yet think it
blessed to live
in dank bosom of
western civ
 
*
 
O what immutable
parody
can scale its
sordid asymmetry?
 
[© R.Kanth 2021]

Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda, A Day in the Life, and Expiations