Unfold the map of the world and trace
a kaleidoscopic boot-shaped country
rising from the waters lavished by Atlantic
in a multicultural basin at the heart

of a flat globe. The Mediterranean birthed
by the Zanclean deluge, witness of myriad
exoduses intertwining genes to encompass
peninsular cradles of early civilisations,

a medley of ethnicities trading goods
discoveries and ideas on sailing caravels.

Two thousand years later the remnants of
the Roman Empire vote, the democracy
they had co-founded two thousand years
before, on philosophies of justice, equality

and human rights. Power to the people,
lost in the process of history making,
populaces disillusioned and frustrated
at millenary successions of failed rulings

corroborated by corruption and personal
greed of those chosen to represent them.

Today Italians vote anti-establishment
thereby at long last rejecting ideologies
of the past, too old to bare credibility
electing a party set outside the box,

no left right nor centre, victory of populism,
communism and capitalism burned
at stake for their crippling sins albeit
international cold-war renaissance attempts.

Marking the end of the twentieth century
the twenty-first bets on the refreshing breezes
of new tantalising illusions, cuts to public debt,
income of citizenship, youth employment,

tax reductions campaigned to allegedly increase
family spending, for whatever we do we are
all bound by a unique reigning doctrine under
the unified global empire, of consumerism.

Radioactive dreams
Got me bursting at the seams
Life is strange as it seems
Neon confusions
Got me coming to conclusions
I undress the illusions

Love bombed lover
You can be replaced with another
Friends who ain’t friends
We all meet unsavoury ends
I’m a victim
To a system

We roll the dice,
Loaded like guns,
Against our luck
And we stare down snake eyes
As we tell ourselves some lies
About our ******* luck

Glitz and glamour
Sugary ******* and diamonds
Hundred-dollar bills
Become hundred-dollar fines
And hundred-dollar fines
Become one-dollar bills
They say don’t eat the rich
Because one day you’ll cannibalise yourself

There is an idea
Called the American Dream
And we’re just living in the fallout
Of such contagious, radioactive dreams

Are you down on your luck?
short on change?
no place to go?
caught in the rain?
Just **** it up & don't complain.
you're on your own - that's capitalism!

if you're poor you
deserve what you are
cause they're rich for a reason
the things they believe in
social darwinism its
survival of the fittest its
living for yourself dont
mess with no one else
and if you don't make it
then you just couldn't take it
and you don't deserve to live anyway...

do you need an out ?
is there no way in?
are you just waiting
for your life to begin?
Well clearly you don't deserve to win.
They won't help - that's capitalism!

The people who make it
clearly won't break it
cause they  have the smarts
to succeed in the art of money.
So give'm all the funds
watch it trickle down and run.
It's a free market, so
let it loose, watch it go.
If there's monopoly
they want you to let it be
its only a kids game to them. . .

no pain no gain.
but if it's not their pain
their result's the same.
but what have we gained?

Is life a dead end
in the land of the free?
ruled by the rich-
a bureaucracy.
No end in sight that we can see.
Our legacy- is capitalism.

America, I am told, was once a gleaming jewel
cut and polished by men with ***** hands
and set in a western crown worn by Lady Liberty.

America, I hear, had hills full of gold
and rivers full of wishes and they always flooded
and watered the land and made things grow tall and strong.

I heard in a song once that this land was made for you and me,
that America was a place of possibility, prosperity,
and that I can follow my footsteps to find my way home.

Home. Home of the brave. Home of justice,
freedom, faith. Home of color, of pride, and opportunity.
Home of We the People and unity.

But I have never known this America,
and this America has not known me.

America has turned its back to those
who broke theirs in trying to lift her.
America has held the whip for far too long.

America has pulled the plug and
now the drain is clogged with the dying.
America is deaf to their dying songs.

America has told us that
we are right where we belong, but oh,
how she couldn’t be more wrong.

You call yourself a soldier of fortune,
you have no idea how right you are.
Even though you think you're fighting for something important,
you're marching for a rich man's new car.
Each bullet you shoot is a stock market spike,
and each victory is new land to claim.
To them you're a barcode or close to the like,
those you fight for don't bother to know your name.

History is written by the winners,
so don't trust the accounts you read.
The strings are all pulled by the sinners,
who wouldn't offer you a bandaid while you bleed.
You may give your life for the flag,
there's honour in that thought.
But they're using your morals to drag,
you and your platoon from spot to spot.
To shoot to **** and see what treasures they've got.

The industries fund each side of the war,
making life and death just a casual bet.
Ford provides the tanks for both just like before,
money spent with a return they're guaranteed to get.
Land's value is more than you know,
'cause the world ain't making anymore anytime soon.
So pick a spot on the globe and go,
and ship out the next loyal platoon.

History is written by the winners,
so always question what you hear.
Behind the scenes there's profiteers and grinners,
and you're seizing the power and resources they hold so dear.
You may give your life to protect,
every single man, woman and child,
but they're using you in retrospect,
and smuggling things in a corpse defiled.
Do they even glance at the bodies that they have piled?

The world's in trouble, there's no denying,
and each soldier has stayed true and loyal.
But at home the problem is double, you'd never know with their lying.
You can't fight your own men and thus you can't get the oil.

Just like every crime, you have to follow the paper trial,
it's no different this time, you're a victim of a government that seeks to fail.
They've made you into a collection agency,
one with guns to force a payment.
It's in plain sight so blatantly,
every person and country has to pay their rent.
For population control,
everyone has to pay the toll.

History is written by the winners,
so only one side gets to plead it's case.
Instead of helping the kids getting thinner,
evil gets a makeover and changes it's face.
I don't wish to shame anyone doing their duty,
I know you believe you're doing the right thing.
But what I'm saying, or eluding,
is they've turned war into business that's always profiting.
So before you put your uniform on,
ask who will benefit from this battle.
You might see the side you fight for is wrong,
and they're marching you to slaughter like cattle.

The real wars are at home,
but they want the heroes to roam,
No one to stop their own war crimes,
counting dollars, quarters, nickels and dimes.
They even call it a machine,
could it be more obvious what they mean?

master motor bearing and the tap tap tap tap tap

end of century summer sweats the tablecloth mixed iridescent spill mixed rancid cream mixed spilt milk mixed mother’s breast

entry the market aisles the aircon slick with dripping fats processed flesh working meats gotcha thumb! gotcha thumb!

plasticide yanks the chain blights the debt fifty-five to the triumph ever closer

above the clatter you let it happen you take out your wallet you scan your loyalty card you take two plastic bags a great machine turns grinding everything to dust above the clatter individual sensations collapse into one cacophony one cluttered ******* oceanic spectre of death

we’ve been here before the flat words the repetition the living death the sickness desire

how far stretch the pennies down

myself myself myself myself myself myself my

The anger does not fit
the cage in which you sit
when with a quick
flick of your thin wrists
you throw ****
and hit more often
then you miss.

You claim to be bereft,
that by some strange theft
your dignity was stolen,

but your religious devotion
pushes you right on your back
as it attempts to enslave,
takes the feminism you once praised
and burns all that progress we’ve made
away;

And your political affiliations
set you in a binary conflict
of liberal against conservative
as the wealthy puppeteers
put their hands up
both party’s ****** derriere
with campaign contributions
and other bribes.

While the pursuit of status
from the materials you lack,
like your Iphone ******,
your sports car crack,
and your commodified
individuality
which comes in
three different colors
a personalized
perfectly designed
clothing line,
makes you an addict
who has to pay
way past closing time
with soul sapping debt.

The dissonance should
splinter your sparkling
billboard reality
as tv images
hyper energize
our innate *** drive
and media moralist
shame said desires.

While your leaders
proclaim a specific faith
but then in turn
spite and debase,
with malice and false claims
anyone who doesn’t
pray each day
the way that they
don’t even pray.

When the main protagonist
in your religious texts
was pretty obviously
anti-capitalist
but your current church leaders
make a killing
selling their parishioners
false promises
of making them
multi-millionaires.

When you
were set up to be
the steward of your society
yet squander
each opportunity
to be more Christ like
cause you have developed
a strong immunity
to reason and logic
which costs us
our humanity.