Cruel Reality
A classic song screams out through my radio,
“We won’t get fooled again!”
Unless we don’t pay attention in history class,
Or worse, when we don’t bother to ask any questions.
Yet soft,
Do not let your words enable “deconstruction.”
Fight on weirdos, fight on freaks,
Fight on.
Stanza 2, the part where the poet keeps rambling,
Not this time.
My poems are no longer mine,
No longer for me,
No longer needing to be justified or validated.
Poetry itself is justified.
Does the president get it?
Of course not,
Evil is as evil does.
Evil has no humanity,
Do not appeal to where there is no court.
Why do so many legitimize evil
by doing nothing?
Denial, easy to do
when ICE or the B.I.A isn’t kidnapping your child
and beating up your grandmother.
Brainless professional bootlicks
and we give them badges and parades.
If they failed at high school football
why trust them with the law?
Cruel reality, not everyone is on your side.
Cruel reality, our lenses can be skewed
and skew our view.
Cruel reality, people are not always what they seem.
I could go on for days about this world’s cruel reality.
And I will.
I need to.
Cruel reality, an idea is an idea in of itself.
It’s all inane, but it’s all very interesting to.
Both?
Yes, and neither.
Confused yet?
Good. That’s step one.
The next is controlling
channelling
the inevitable frustrations.
Your microwave will kill you
faster than a diseased box
and the cops are bloodthirsty.
Long live reality T.V.
Max Headroom was no metaphor,
Tangent words begin again
reps and senators
Hot sex live 24/7
And the millionaires whine more about it than we do.
That’s nice but please sir,
Please master,
May I have some more?
No, well, can I have my life back?
No?
Can I at least live?
No.
Why are the puppies begging eyes
only effective when they are blue,
not brown?
Enjoy cable?
iPhones? Wifi?
And all the other masturbation aides?
Well, congrats jerks,
While you were hate tweeting about whatever it is,
Tyrone got shot,
Maria was deported,
And Mohamed is stuck in LAX.
Good luck replacing all three.
Flags make good cum catchers,
And even our soldiers are tired of being props,
Sick of being human flag poles.
Don’t use the used to justify you.
Facts to suit theories not theories to suit facts.
Have I limited myself?
Is grammar so important?
What do order and style
have anything to do with truth?
When did “MAGA” become “Zig HEIL!”?
It always was.
A big, round planet
that no empire could ever keep covered.
Caligula had to come sometime
but a horse in the senate would be fitting
since it is already full of jackasses.
Thank you good night!
You’ve been a great crowd!
Don’t forget to harass the waitress on your way out.
Cruel reality,
Integrity can fall short,
And supremacy hinders the so called “supreme.”
Cruel reality,
Proustian memories triggered not by a cookie, but a beer,
A familiar scene, my local pub and brew.
A dad trying,
A bored teen,
A hungry young sister,
Convinced she “isn’t hungry daddy!”
It is her standing rock, she will not be moved.
A sweet scene, tainted by the world it exists in.
Cruel reality,
Not everyone on the same side
is actually on the same side.
Cruel reality,
One man can destroy democracy.
One can always interfere,
But one can never stand in the way of truth.
Cruel reality for them,
The truth is always there,
And will always haunt them.
Cruel reality,
We can never be free from the haunt of memory.
Nation captive to nation,
The profit in pain.
Cruel reality,
Kids don’t care about the carbon-dated world
of colas and silver screen stars.
Should they?
A question for the philosophers, not the poets.
Cruel reality for the enemy,
Is that the game is a state of mind.
But the game ain’t saying nothing.
Today the masses say it,
Cruel reality for the enemy,
The eye of integrity,
Karma and big brother
Are on them like never before.
Cruel reality for the enemy, but we all got game.
Cruel reality, what is happening here
Is perfectly clear
And it always has been.
Cruel reality,
Racism is not just for the racists,
But even the “good” people.
Cruel reality for me,
Though frustration is real
The tedium of this world,
The pain and suffering
Is more real than ever today.
Cruel reality, that isn’t too cruel when you think about it,
But the time, the chance, to step back,
And give others a space, a time, a home.
Cruel reality, pretty blond pornstars
Have gone political,
And trust me when I say
It isn’t pretty.
Cruel reality.
Cruel reality.
Cruel reality.
Won’t someone pass me a pill
Since joints are a sin?
Pass me a pill so that I may sink
So that I can forget
So that I can ignore these days,
This era,
So that I can ignore
our cruel reality.
James J Jackson 