Every time he speaks
I hear the bluster and the lie
and what my mother taught me
about empty barrels
making the loudest noise
bubbles up inside
And I wonder how
the plainly evident
gets skewed in the eyes
of so many others
what did their mothers
teach them about
boisterous bullies and
skirt-chasing scoundrels
Perhaps the words
were never spoken
or maybe only as a token
and so,
we have the lost and broken
Unable to separate
the shit from shinola
they bend to the viciously simplistic
The fake paternalistic
Father-knows-best
how to rule the rest
They never question
they simply fall in line
No matter the level of asinine
As we march democracy
towards that empty pit
in fascism’s forest
we hope against hope
that eyes will open
before that final blast
to the back of the head
bendingtheneedle 