"establishment" poems
Never trust the establishment
They do not exist for our benefit
For they believe that we exist
For their convenience
Their only purpose is self-perpetuation
And they think that our only function
Is to accommodate that purpose
Whereas our true cause should be
To get rid of the ********
By Phil Roberts
Feb 3, 2017
Feb 3, 2017 at 3:12 PM UTC
Why search for an identity?
You can live without one, right?
False.
Living is not synonymous with time moving forward while you
haven’t moved a single muscle.
Time runs even if you have no identity
but life? It can’t start until you’ve found one.
On a day when everyone puts their identities on display
I am left out of the exhibit
“Sorry,” says the museum, “but I only want art that has meaning.”
and I suppose that’s fair…
Yet as fair as it may be, I still want to be a part of the museum
I want to be able to present myself proudly with the other brilliant
works of art
Tick. Tick. Tick.
When Time passes by the museum my heart skips a beat
because one day he could decide to shut the establishment down
before I’ve had my chance.
On a spectrum commonly interpreted as binary
where will I fall?
Am I plummeting towards my identity or my death?
An army of questions are ready to fight
and the little clue I have stands no chance.
so I pull him back and I keep him close
and acquaint him with good ol’ mr. Time.
It’s fine that I’m frozen
Now that I know
that patient time
is helping my little clue grow!
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 10:41 AM UTC
We had recovering drug addicts come in
Talking to us with their sunken
Ashy eyes
And sweaty palms
You could tell they were nervous by the
Way they carried themselves
Cinder blocks and
Broken piano parts
And their pasts
All clinging to them,
For life support
They talked about how easy
It was to let gravity eat you alive
As you are falling into a black pit
You can’t stop the falling
Their wings were bound to
Pseudo lovers who
Gave them bruised arms
And blue fingers.
If you are lucky enough to
Escape the clenched hands of
Addiction,
The rest of your life will
Be a walking tightrope act
Trapeze dancers
One slip and you are falling
Even faster
Harder than before.
And your family, friends,
Everyone you have ever known is
In the audience watching you
Fall into your premature grave
And there is nothing they can do
But tell you to fly
But you cant
Because you just love your
Mistress too much
To ever let her go.
And they warned us about
How hard it might be to say no
To not let the circus come into
Town, but if you do
Only you can pack up the
Lions, clowns,
Colorful balloons.
Someone asked them if they
Believe drugs should be legalized
And he responded with
If I walk into a gas station
And see drugs for sale I will
Not be able to hold myself
Upright.
But I also do not want a government
Establishment to tell me what I can
And cannot ingest into my body,
So I don’t know.
Newton’s First Law of Motion
States that something will keep moving
Unless some force acts upon it.
And once you start drugs
Or gambling
Or skipping meals
it will progressively
Worsen in time.
Festering in bloodstreams
Until you decide to stop it.
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013 at 1:57 PM UTC
Once upon a time, a long time ago
There was a little boy with a grimy flow
I used to hear him rap in Chicago everyday
And this is what I heard him say…….
He say **** like, he be like….
Ah! and I'm a *********** biter
The size of the incises inside ya might surprise ya
You might need rewind to decipher my cyphers
Ain't nothing on this world worth more than my saliva
I go so hard when I'm flowing
So cold my flows frozen
I'm a rowboat rowing in an open ocean
And I'm hoping, to blow up with no promotion
But dam, those explosions are so slow motion
So, I need some honey bees to pollinate my money trees
Cause fuckery of companies, accompanies that come between
A couple bucks and me, turned my orange juice to Sunny-D
Hide the cash for food stamps, no way i'm funded publicly
I'm hungry, but not for sandwiches I'm ambitious
A panhandler with gram plans and last wishes
Ask for the last table scraps you can't finish
Sell em back when you digest, and I repackage it
Abracadabra, I'm an alchemist, my magic tricks are acting as contaminates
I damage this establishment
They enacted bans on urban camping
If you ask them how they sleep at night the answer is
Happily on mattresses
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 12:43 AM UTC
What you think about other
peoples' hair is a trick by
the establishment to keep you
down. Not all with long
hair are hippies, not every
skinhead is a *******
An afro doesn't make you
funky, having soul does.
It isn't what is on the
skull that matters, ******
it is what happens
underneath.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 10:38 AM UTC
Are such narratives abrasive
Such as the condition of our racists
Like our cops who fear black faces
Perhaps you find such dialog tasteless
Would you rather read of love
Higher powers from above
Blinded souls that now can see
Angelic intervention when we bleed
Are you afraid to know
Or uncomfortable
Surely you must have a care
The establishment
Has taken the power
While we were unaware...
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 8:26 AM UTC
July 4, 2015
Grandson Tony and Grandpa went to Mickey D's for breakfast. Grandpa was ready to vacate the premises when Tony barred the door. "Just a little while longer Grandpa." So Grandpa sat back down.
Soon a cake and five of the Mickey D people appeared and sang happy birthday. Tony was apparently being a little secretive and alerted the establishment when we clocked in. Grandpa cut four pieces of cake. Two to take home for Lucy and Grandma. Two for Tony and Grandpa.
Tony then ask if he could give his piece of cake to someone. "Sure you can." grandpa replied. There were two tables with grandparent types and parents sitting 10 feet away. Tony picked up his piece a cake and a fork and squeezed in between the two tables and placed the cake in front of the young fella who eagerly began eating it. Grandpa then noted the boy had Downs Syndrome. The people at the table were pleasantly surprised at what had just happened. A grandmother came over where Grandpa was sitting and express that it was a very thoughtful thing Tony did. The whole thing rather blew Grandpa away. But that's the way Tony is. Full of surprises.
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 12:27 PM UTC
Thugs with Pens & Aerosol Cans
Thugs with Pens
Hell-bent; not on cultism
Just airing the other sentiments
That don’t make it to primetime
Thugs with pens
Not poking out eyes
Just venting spleen
Sick of the lies
Thugs with pens
Deserve to be heard
They don’t poison your brain
With stacks of *****
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans
Can change your mind
In ******* time
Thugs with pens
Can make a dent
They don’t need to insert
Un-readable, un-interesting
Covert small print....
Thugs with pens
Don’t need no script writers
Or advisors nor signatories
Witnesses, nor dodgy men
With gold plated fountain pen nibs
To make amends
Or throw in no hidden clauses
That secretly **** your life blood
Thugs with pens
Don’t aim to pierce your skin
But make their mark
Deeper within
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans
Completely uncensored
champions of free speech
The establishment want suppressed,
silenced, deleted; terminated.
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans don’t
Schedule meetings
To fix the minutes
And schedule another meeting
And keep ‘minutes’
As square angled
And unproductive
As formal conversation
Thugs with pens
Aim venomous ink
At headless politicians
That squawks like chickens
Bending over
For the *************
Bank-beefing corporations,
Controlling the masses
With ***** little catchphrases
And mounds of munitions
And illegally enforced restrictions
On your movement and free expression
Honest men
Have nothing to fear
From Thugs with Pens & Aerosol Cans
These “thugs” seek asylum
From countries
Where the law’s
Not bought and bent
Thugs with pens & aerosol cans
Are made to wear monikers and masks
Thugs with pens
Don’t turn on its own
Neighbours and citizens
To perpetuate myths:
A ****** ************* lie…
A thing that never happened!
(That’s for all of you dumb wits
out there
Who believe most of the ****
That’s drip fed
Your sensation addicted minds
Most of the time,)
Time you started reading between the lines
In fact get a pen
Or an aerosol can
Write your own lines
Start broadcasting
Reclaim your space
Before you’re completely neoned
Into the shade
And corralled under the spell
Of a TV screen
Or an anger raising headline
That conducts the flow
Of the status quo
Load up your magazines
With ball point pens
And sharp edged writing nibs,
Strap on a belt of aerosol cans
Reclaim your right to free expression
In public spaces
Join the rag-tag army
Of intuitive
Self-knowing men
The End: is well begun,
George Orwell
Should never have written
That blueprint,
‘1984’
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 8:59 AM UTC
A determined existence is
Just mental slavery,
And you have been forced
Into accepting by the
Inhumane ********** of
A world run by profit.
Your god is the same
As the monsters with
Dollar signs in their eyes.
Pay your taxes,
Pray to your god,
And follow the Golden Rule.
Your parents always said that
Those were the ingredients
For a happy life, right?
But they never told you
That God and Country
We're looking out for
Corporate greed and they
Won't spare a penny
To help you survive.
So you have been
Blinded to the truth,
Corruption so deep,
You can't trust anyone.
Question everything.
Blind faith brought
The Two Towers to the ground,
And bombed Pearl Harbor.
The cross killed millions
After Jesus bled for
Your right to be a blind bigot,
Preaching love and
Practicing ruin,
Hate because of love and
Protection for criminals.
When the Catholic Churches
Sold out the Star of David,
****** capitalized on the hate
To leap to power and
Force millions of men to
****** and die over beliefs,
And choice in imaginary friends.
All you know is fear
Of the different and unknown,
Taught to you by
Your family, church, and country.
A mental slavery based
On submission, ignorance,
Hate and fear.
All of this was
Carefully constructed
To keep you buying,
And to keep the same
Outdated beliefs, divisions,
And people well established.
It's all so entrenched in
Our society that you
Already have misconstrued
My message to be an attack
On your existence
But you are my comrade,
Without arms to fight against
The corrupted establishment.
So here I am,
An arms dealer,
Delivering to you
Truth and sparks
For you to pick up the fight
When my rebellion is silenced.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 3:59 PM UTC
Although the experience of trauma is a certain force with which to be reckoned, one can frame its power within the realms of a problem or a possibility.
Consider the bond of brickwork in Massachusetts, as it resembles structures of olde, where the witch trials were an extension of ******* Catholicism.
Please acknowledge that there is lead in the windows of rickety black-and-white buildings of Tudor establishment, which must remain if its integrity is to be preserved.
It truly is a long way to the top of Australasian rebellion.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 11:52 PM UTC
perfunctory actions
zombie habits
sheep normalcy
blindly following the cud chewers
lemmings fall to their deaths
slowly
genetically engineered crops
dusted with pharmaceutical poison
laced with irradiated petroleum pesticides
fed to the babies of the poor –
wealthy voyeurs eagerly tune-in
as the impoverished masses rot
for viewing pleasure
leisurely strolling across manicured lawns
those in power scoff at the growing spectacle
unaware that the cake is stale
and the masses smell blood –
hurriedly, accountants shuffle tax rates
mix those with interest credit
season it with mortgage fees
and serve it on wall street
place mats
taking stock of stock market gains
gamblers do double gainers off high rises
adding to the flesh being consumed by the under class
under classed –
underclassmen, underpaid, stretch under ware elastic
as waistlines expand with the debt ceiling
both symbolizing the slow decline of
the American dream
screaming into the sewer
fewer eyes look back as disease dulls the iris
loss of the inner shine
glowing reflection of living organisms
fading as the day
slips into the blue-black –
night falls on a nation of imbeciles
brain dead patients
broken by depression and weight-loss scams
hearts crying out for care
personal and compassionate
instead are met with sterile robotics
and sanitary “C” students dressed in white
fearful of lawsuits
and spiders
they prescribe to symptoms
without knowing insurance number 87319A23-S1
is a human being, just like them
also living in fear
of the same establishment –
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
it is one thing
to follow her into the dark
it is another thing
to borrow her fragmented words
and hold her in one hand
and a scale in another
and call it justice
but, by God
(whichever one you’d like to cite today
the kind one, the cruel one, and so on),
it is a whole different thing
to seize her by the neck
and rip the words from her throat
and twist them into cotton *****
and dip them into holy water
and force them back into her mouth
until she can no longer breathe
and no longer live and no longer exist
without drowning in a sense of helplessness
because we, the people, will always remember exactly how
you took your greed and shoved it into her mouth
and down her throat, until you stifled the cries of
‘my body, my choice’ with a book of myths and a man’s voice
weren’t you supposed to be our voice?
what was this all for? was the money so loud that
you could not hear the echoes of pro-choice?
our rage—will it be worth those thirty silver coins?
Jun 26, 2022
Jun 26, 2022 at 1:53 PM UTC
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Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 1:40 AM UTC
Establishment
Society
Not given a choice
Sold a lie
****** in
Constant upward climb
Falling back down
No escape; in too deep
Yearning for freedom
To roam, to express, to create
Suppressing what feels natural
Such a pity
when child-like free-bird souls are caged
This is the real depression
May 24, 2016
May 24, 2016 at 1:57 PM UTC
I’m awfully homesick, but
people always ask me the wrong questions.
It’s always
“Where is home for you?
Where do you go?”
The thing is,
“home”
isn’t a “where” question to me.
There is no mere
longitude and latitude
that can locate home for me,
my home is not cemented into the earth.
Home is a “who” question.
Who is home for you?
Where there ought to be brick and mortar there are bones,
where there should be couches and beds to rest on
there are arms open to embrace me.
I find home in no establishment of carpets and china cabinets,
I find comfort and solace in a person.
So, my dear,
you
are home for me.
And I’m homesick.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 4:30 PM UTC
Father, Son, Mechanic…
Man, I’ve wanted to talk to you – really talk to you – for some time now.
to see your face in front of me, instead of dangling from necklaces,
or hanging, melancholy, over sexless couples’ beds.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading all that stuff you wrote (supposedly),
and I’ve enjoyed it, Man, I have.
but I keep wanting it to be a letter, when in the end it’s just
a bipartisan explanation – an engineer’s guide to
building a pretty vehicle around a faulty engine.
I always see you, arms spread,
sprawled across the older bitter-america’s steering wheel.
my mama would tease me, saying you’d want me to help some day.
but you and your cronies drove me like a beat-down El Camino,
joyfully taking me through wrong turns and bumpy streets
waiting for my chassis to split.
and once I ran out of gas to offer, you refused to touch me at all,
letting me rot in your cobweb garage.
and all those ******* in turtlenecks and polos popped,
they’ve gleefully branded your logo on their chemical biceps
and gaily explain how close you were.
how they knew you like no one else did,
how you guys didn’t have a connection, but a relationship.
people should only let their mechanics touch their cars, though,
and keep their innards free of oily fingers.
to be honest, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to this establishment again.
it’s a little too clean for my taste, and your prices are way to high
especially when all you get is a little peace of mind and a sense of humbled grandeur.
don’t worry about the car, though – you can keep it.
you’ve sort of spoiled all its good intentions,
so I’ll be buying a new one sometime soon.
I guess I’ll be taking a taxi.
No, actually.
I’ll hitchhike home.
Jul 12, 2010
Jul 12, 2010 at 11:20 PM UTC
The aftermath of betrayal
Those upon a corrupted throne shall witness my reign of anger
Though not stereotypical
My wrath with come a little bit stranger
Fury with grasp my fingers and lips
And I will dismantle their establishment using cunning as speartips
Dec 28, 2012
Dec 28, 2012 at 8:55 AM UTC
Well, what a week, full of revelation
Enough to stir this talk of revolution
Makes your hackles turn on end
Then send you round the bend
The southern gentry have found oil
Right beneath their derriere boil
Now most of us on this golden isle
Need not worry about this pile
Those who wear weekend country tweed,
Built their fortunes from housing greed
Have already decided
That it will be one sided
They’ll say it’s theirs, by rights
And if we argue, will read our last rites
The South will declare independence
In certainty of their full ascendance
Over the outer reaches of this nation
They pounded into servitude, by taxation
And if we have the nerve to debate, I’ll be bound
They’ll leave it horded in the ground,
Then blame the anti frackin’ hound
Now I may need a political re - education
In a 1984 establishment for rehabilitation
But I can see it coming a five-nation island
Southland, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland,
And the Detritus
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 5:27 PM UTC
The Chef
As the Bourdain said a cook is nobody
he has no power no one cares what he has to say
some of them are gifted with a natural talent for food and its ingredient
and flashes of inspiration can fire the spark that is godlike.
I knew of a restaurant which was always full at lunch and dinner,
Where the chef? I asked a waiter. Oh, he is somewhere in the back.
Back of the food place an open door, the chef stood to smoke
a cigarette. I looked at me sourly, but when I expressed
interest and when an order came in of a bacon omelette
he made it with the flourish of a craftsman.
The manager of the establishment said the chef had worked here for
Six years but he- the chef- was impossible to work with.
The chef suddenly quit and drove a taxi. Less stress that way.
The restaurant faltered until the penny dropped, a chef is a star
In the firmament of catering without a flawed genius in the kitchen, it is better
to run a pizza parlour
Sep 1, 2018
Sep 1, 2018 at 4:46 AM UTC
I told the professor I loved beat literature and all the hippy consequences. He said they were such a small part of the population (along with Native Americans too apparently, he noted a different time. Because of what, you ******* I thought).
A pompous misguided thing, which either understandably or surprisingly, been teaching there since the 1960s. Five minutes of a winded attempt at putting anglophile humor into the lecture and you know the choice is "understandably" rather than "surprisingly." Been professing for the establishment, closed to other ways of thinking trickery.
A real square through and through. As if all change should come from appeasing the tyrannical bleachy supposed majority. Those in poverty, darker skins, gays, drug users, and all around flashy dressers ought to don suits for their one night Ed Sullivan performance. Get the folks on Bass Run Lane to be okay with seeing you in a glass cage in their living room scene. For just a couple decades. Then maybe they'll be used to seeing you in a grocery store. You'll always be laughable though, as they designed it to be so.
The hippies were a very small majority says the anointed professor.
"So were the suffragettes" snaps back a fiery thing sitting next to me. I should have talked to her more.
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 11:29 PM UTC
I am no expert,
no expert at all
But when I am compelled
to write a poem
the compulsion comes
from a pure wish
to distil a thought,
to communicate,
to ride language ********
across the open spaces
of my brain
But you would lasso me,
corral me,
shut the barn doors on me
and the lowing, braying herd
for some self appointed *****
to cast judgement
So that the best possible outcome
is that I step on the faces of others
on my way to institutionalised,
establishment-approved freedom
Well,
**** you
and the horse
you wish you could have ridden in on.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 4:22 PM UTC
As culled from an arts magazine, 13 March 2019
Socialist Realism - The official doctrine in Soviet art and literature after 1932 that evolved from the traditional commitment to social and civic concerns into an all-pervasive general ideological mandate.
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 20th Century Russian Poetry
collective exhibition space vibe community
interactive narrative brown neighborhood
defined commodified Indigenous
identity tone-deaf decolonial
narratives populist intertwined
exhibition curatorial vision
culture local artists arts district small galleries
DIY spaces speaking out against
gentrification displacing shelter
studio space elsewhere late stage capitalism
collective mantra underdog art savior
corporate entity partnering insensitive
ignorant collective brown people art
contemporary work that may not fit
into establishment art galleries
media advisory venture collaborate
creative community authentic
local statement of expression excitement
creative energy arts district project
many levels collaborate local
creative important creative
community what that collaboration
looks like ongoing local artists going
to be engaged in planning commissioned
project community buy-in consulted members of the creative community Indigenous artists curators museum
directors professors burgeoning landscape
cultural framework critique talk individuals
entities inclusivity open
dialogue opportunities project
conversations collaboration discuss
your projects share our work with you
common ground work together healthy sustainable
accountable decolonization
Mar 16, 2019
Mar 16, 2019 at 5:41 PM UTC
leisure up my friend !
weaken open your shellfish hinge
and wet your beak
it’s a marked holiday break
unmarred by family obligation
there’s freedom
to make the most criminal crown of mistakes
in the name
of some frown of liberal investigation
on the town
an eager squad of collaborators are on board
they have your back
desperate, sick and starving gulls
broadened to explore the deplorable
on and on to the next and the next
death defining task
a meandering stagger of a bar crawl
perpetually powering through
as the day spans a revulsion
the heat stays as the day sinks beneath
in place of the suns rays
the heat radiates
from the baked city concrete
stepping out from the shelter of the bar
the night swelter respires fiercely
not done with our steam of annihilation
what establishment would take our kind ?
city has already bowed over it's plumage
to our ******* pilgrimage
bark melts and peels in strips off the trees
(meat shaved off the strip pole)
our heels spark the pavement
vermin and jackals follow our movement
from shimmering dark spots
and our vision constricts
our aim has become clotted...
...what was it that we reached for ?
oblivions fruit seemed a doable pursuit
it's the usual downhill shambles from here
familiar yet barely remembered
a rambling guff of bad ***** comedy
there is no plucky legend
just an embarrassment
Jun 10, 2023
Jun 10, 2023 at 9:47 PM UTC
Muggy murky dawn clogged with gloom the abbey
Where his grampy sleeps ,
Through
the drizzles fizzle
As native orchids embosoms and blossoms in his lost vault.
like a curfew drawn in the church
The pew lost its crowd
With the paws of time.
Lone man sleep
In deep latin chants they petrify you
Before sheol purifies you
And litany literature lecture limbs you
When in overprotected embankments of battlements
They dry their garbs
Where your lore forayed growth
And sweat smeared smelt breathed wealth
Chagrin dreams washed ashore
lay as upon a cold mornings recollection on a tabloids sold column
which drew your freckles bolder
In a savour of remembrance
For your zealous zealots
Who on an another 'all souls day' reoccur revisiting
the truth of their establishment
in prayers
The good Lord adorn you
Let Lekker dreams cradle you
Your consorts concert never consume you
And earth never haunt you
May 20, 2012
May 20, 2012 at 1:47 AM UTC
it almost feels like the literary critique
establishment never heard
of the digitalised version of literary
print... a bit like the dynamic
of ***********
they read **** on toilet paper
and never the small print.. no metaphor,
no pun, poet is dead with god,
you remember, let's keep it like it's 1977
with punk angst, o.k.?
well 1 1 1 of the fingers on toilet paper...
**** smear....
eager music critics, but hardly any
pornographic critics, make a living they say...
cheap pop! ah, cheap pop! chop chop!
butchers' eyes first, priests' last -
liver bitter a minded care for it
as if minding a child! curse the minding!
curse the liver! a swarm of egos,
selfish likened to a marketplace
selfless likened to a monastery -
there the likening to clarify staring into a mirror;
there where we ate everything, including thought,
the materialisation of its immaterial twin: soul;
we too ate with the lineage concerned
via the Eucharist.
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 9:41 PM UTC