so hear me out
those who refuse to be governed
by the power of the fist
will be culled, their children left
crying & quaking & run through
the propaganda machine until
they too bend the knee to the state
because what else is the state
but a fist threatening to explode
your life to subservient nothingness
& all the philosophers & priests
tell us there is more to life
than this but the scientists
staring at the skies say no,
there is only infinity stretching
beyond the universe's edges &
what lies beyond that we don't
know which is an unkind philosophy
of its own & what I mean is that
another murder of a citizen at
the hands of a goon given carte
blanche by the fascists freely
elected by the populace they
keep dumb & a media industry complicit
through profit-focused spreadsheets
driven by celebrity gossip, sports
scores & regurgitating press
releases almost verbatim is just
what could be expected given
the heat death of the universe
endorsed by a neglectful god
no matter how many thoughts
& prayers & outrage are spread
like grape jelly on the distended
stomachs of the seriously aggrieved
because cruelty is the point &
your atoms are not your own
but belong to a universe that doesn't
have a moral code beyond struggling
to exist within whatever black box
of nothingness contains the small
shriveled pitiable heart we like
to call God as if trying to name
the unnameable gives us the power
to make sense of our own fragile
existence before we're snuffed out
like a candle's flame, tethered yet
striving, yearning, to break free