The Government We Get

If you look up to the tabs at the top of this blog page, you will see one titled, "Journalistic Poetry." I began writing those poems in January of 2016, in response to the new administration in the White House. There are currently 21 poems in that collection, most written during the first 100 days of the current administration. The following poem was first posted in September of 2017. ~ CK

Fas-cism: a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control of social and economic life, and extreme pride in country and race, with no expression of political disagreement allowed.  (Cambridge Dictionary)

The Government We Get

This is how the dread begins –

                    too easily.     

Fascism is too easily

Spoken.

The word itself

Suddenly stops

                   all examination

And hinders

                 possibilities.

It makes us think

                   in graphic images –

Lets us picture the other

As mindless oppressors

                   whose foreign tongue

And jack boot heels

Set perimeters of conformity –

And the other

                    is always the other.    

Fascism is too easily

Held

In times of hate

When the world becomes

                 afraid and uncertain.

It has been

Our default mode

Of governing

Ourselves – as if

                   we would be governed.

What harm is it

                   to want to be

With people who look like us?

Where we can speak with ease

                   and without care?   

We gravitate toward a system

                   that helps us

Not think

Not struggle

                   when times are hard.

We then hand it over

                   to those in charge

To set the perimeters of conformity. 

Just let me have

                    my own couch

And kitchen table –

And people like me.

It all seems natural

And normal.

Therein lies the problem.

This is how the dread begins.

                                              

                                                  ~ CK 

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