by LJ Frank

The Republic  

a statement or allegory

erected by a gerrymandered electorate

representatives of…

the beast revealed the tusks of ivory are precious to some

the bitter tasting seeds on the tongue’s nodules

exude a sweet lie on the lawyerly tongues of Justice 

and the metaphoric saliva of the Gods

drips blood from the lower lip

grasping for Founding words among the weeds

like the vanishing of Thou and I

and erreur politique

is without need of translation

originalism was not the original intent

rather, it was  the pursuit of adaptability

and an open mind was the root 

of The Age of Reason   

still, rigor mortis is inevitable

the body and mind harden

the bone structure returns to dust

and angst was first recorded 

in George Elliot’s Letters of 1849;

 

memory coagulates 

thought is an ambiguous tool

like a Mass without a communion

a body lifeless

while the mightiest exhort 

admonishing others for the sins

they themselves commit

yet proud of their guilt

and invoking a jingoistic spirit

they do not follow such matters in their private circles

with profits in accounts offshore

denied those not of the calling

does it matter

competition is a fetish among the lowest

the kink of credit not withstanding

free to be born at a cost 

as exhibitionistic privacy is a commodity

with a price to behold

and tissues of fat are excised from the buttocks

to inflate the phallus

the heart is chained to an illusion;

 

naked 

while the mind is clothed 

poverty and war

are the epistles of pornography  

what is non-consensual

if all is a lie

control is to be relished 

but what of the “others”

manipulation is sold as liberty

fairer than justice itself

and the “rugged individual” 

is led to think

that they are thinking on their own

so let the buyer beware

what good is the diploma

while sitting in a winter’s cold stoned alley;

 

all are created equal 

ask the disabled child in a wheelchair

purchased on time from those with benign smiles

and  deceptive airs 

showing their whitened teeth

while smoking grass ten miles off the coast

in a luxurious yacht,

perhaps with a bit of luck

the etymological roots of fuck 

might unearth the colonial spirit

drunk in a tavern

waiting anxiously

the cemetery is filled with the skeletons of reason

from past Republics.