Your Smile Creaks

poetry by Kelly Russell

your smile creaks at the corners wide
I see your words slip and slide
from gracious accommodating TV host
to chilly winter holocaust

and the newspapers print that you are swell
and that no one loves oil quite as well
and the gluttony of your friends goes under-traced
like feasting fishes who like the taste

of blood and lies and endless death
of resurrected war, tormented flesh
and I wonder how your dreams do transpire
to feed an ego which never tires

and you say that god is on your side
in fact you say this with such pride
that god the gentle and god the kind
must ask what sort of man in mind

could ask such atrocity be given vote
to proceed as a vision wrapped in the cloak
of injustice and poverty for the stricken and small
and call it a better world for all

so I ask in the name of all that is true
that your unwavering smile become unglued
and your political hole of corruption and sin
become less of a snickering snickering grin

yes I will stand alone in the patriot's dust
who won't bow down in the machine of your lust
for power and control over every TV
that features a question from someone like me

and you can convince all of us that it's well worth the risk
to lay low and suffer through trying to exist
in a world where you make free expression a joke
and the smiling foolish liar lies waiting to choke