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Tyler Matthew Feb 2018
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.
Em MacKenzie Feb 2018
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?
Akemi Jan 2018
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
A mirror neuron, or cubelli neuron, is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.
Graff1980 Jan 2018
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.
Graff1980 Jan 2018
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.
Doruk Jan 2018
I woke up to go to work
To make my boss rich,
To make him make his boss rich,
To have the biggest boss making government rich,
To help the government train soldiers,
To have them fight with other soldiers,
To collect all the tears their families drop,
I thought, eating my breakfast.
Sipping my tea that I made,
From tears.
I wrote this a while ago when I was making a project about capitalism. It worked, I guess! :)
Originally mine. Translated from Turkish and wow! This is way better than the original.
Graff1980 Dec 2017
It is a gush
of cultish greed
that sees me seed
these gray streets
with cement
and litter.

Searching for
the stars that glitter
in commercials
and window shops,
the tyranny
of humanity
swells in my heart.

Callus to the collective
because of the things
I seek to collect.

Then with each purchase,
and each pleasure pill
I use to conceal
the depths of
what I truly feel
I lose
a piece of
the empathy
I once cherished
and loved.

Till, my leather worn face
turns bitter
and the last of my humanity
escapes me
because of poor scheduling.
Benjamin Dec 2017
In this town, the tower blocks stand above the clouds,
the street lights illuminate the granite pathways,
as you walk, you will kick a package of cigarettes
depicting a very sick woman -
they sell them in the corner shops.

In this town, I have seen the worst mind’s of my generation,
flourish in the un-fertile fields like
flowers that grow on a soil
of cigarette ends and syringes
chewing gum, coffee cups, oranges.
Condoms, crisp packets, needles,
Rare paintings that hang on the walls of the mind,
torn down by the authorities,
painted over with white.
Lost in a sea of machinery.
And bright light’s.

In this town, in the gutter of the pavements,
vile creatures will reach out there shaking hands.
Varicose veins, blackened nails, drooling mouths,
and beady wanting eyes begging you for pennies.
Dismissed by city boys suicidal from the stress.
Some look a mess, some feel a mess.
It’s all the same, the endless city strain.
In this town, when your eyes look up,
you see the birds flying in pain,
from these ******* factories filling
the air with smoke killing
the natural ecstasy of the sky,
and they fall from the sky and die.

And they wonder why kids
reach for the knives and the guns.
Wonder why they cut their arms.
Smoke and smoke and smoke to feel calm.
Wonder why they hang from structures.
Wonder why they paint obscenities on the walls of schools.
Wonder why they drawl
at the site of death
when it follows them everywhere
from podium’s in the wealthy churches.
To the cemetery gates,
To the news broadcasts.

Wonder why they disappear for weekends
Somewhere lost in a city of escapism
Wonder why they howl fowl verse
Strums on guitars,
hit at the drums.
Wonder why they linger in dark alleys. And dead ends.
With money, clutched by shaking fingers, seeking amends.

In this town, you wake to the marching boots;
The sound of the army that walk the city streets
In a uniform of suits, and guns in the shape of suitcases
All with similar faces, similar hats,
You will wake to the scream of the birds & the cats,
The scream of babies
The scream of love
They scream of could be, should be, would be and maybe’s
The hope.



Suffocated by the marching armies
By the dictators
that are the tower’s, the factories, the school’s
  that stand above the clouds,
   in these towns.
I was walking through my city and kind of felt compelled to right about the endless misery I was passing.
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