1.
What we say we want, we do not want.
What we say we do not want, we want.
2.
Royalty was always in America’s shadow.
We fought with one hand to get out
from under a king while the other
hand, the one in darkness, kept a firm
grip on the scepter and crown.
3.
Our resentment warehouses hundreds
of years of grievance. And those arms
manufacturers we kept suckling
after World War II — it was us
we secretly gave them permission to bomb.
4.
Eradication of native people,
slavery, denial of climate change,
our great historical crimes.
Oh yes, and our little love affair with guns . . .
Consciousness too heavy to carry.
Its consumer showroom floor gives out,
we find ourselves thrown down
into the basement of our death wish.
5.
How ghastly to discover that our whole
way of life is an idol, hollow
and airless inside its gilt members!
6.
We can put up with any amount of
cruelty so long as he takes
and breaks entertainingly. We fester
with resentment and are entertained.
7.
What has caused his complete
identification with moral losers —
the grifters, liars, con men, abusers,
murderers, thieves, dictators
(did you hear him tell the German chancellor
that D-Day was “not a great day”)?
8.
Being shadow king, he must have
the greatest shadow anyone has ever had.
We handed it to him, sent our fawning
shadow ministers forth to anoint him,
threw our grinding grievances at his feet.
9.
What he says he wants, he does not want.
What he says he does not want, he wants.
10.
I would say to him:
Come, be honest with us, if just this once —
isn’t it yourself you long to deport?
.
Thomas R. Smith
.