Disinformation – KensView

Pandemic

Why do we keep on keeping on
In the face of such disaster
when health policy is no good for no reason
when everything supposed to be right is wrong
when the CDC says something
and the FDA says something
and somebody remarking on public confidence
says something
and the public won’t wear the masks?

What keeps frontline workers working into the night
and keeps them going in the morning
living on coffee and waiting for things to end
cleaning counters and wiping vegetables
as if some answer lay in a disinfectant
and despite those among us who
irrationally and without a doubt
are leaving their trust in
Tucker Carlson and hydroxychloroquine?

Why don’t we say just screw it
And stop trying again and again
to march into the President’s pressroom
with half an idea about the Wuhan virus
hoping he’ll have the other half
and hoping what he says will happen
when his stable genius
gets lit by something never tried
and he states will work this time?

Could it be it,
that we do all this over and over
just for those times
when a revelation may rise among us
like something ever re-birthing
a new life, another hope
something not immediately visible but
leading us to a real solution
and the salvation of the human race?

Who stole it?

Is it greedy presidential hacks
Or those barbaric Pentagon rats?
My Uncle Sam proclaims he wants me
But what really chases me up this tree?
IRS comes knocking for some tax
I comply for fear of seeming lax:
Vietnam, Chicago still on fire
But I stay at home with no desire
Newspapers decry crime on the streets
As nightly I hide beneath my sheets
Midnight specials for Russian roulette
It seems there is no other outlet
I quietly sit sipping my tea
While Tricky Dick spouts shit on TV
But when I cry “Civic Robbery”
I see that I stole myself from me.

War Is Not the Answer

I came to Paris to flee the war gods,
and their cynical words and cruelty,
each day viewing a decade of destruction
in the news from distant rice fields.

Tonkin Gulf, Tet Offensive, My Lai,
napalm and carpet bombing,
a naked child’s run down a road,
there were no good reasons for their lies.

As Nixon crows Hearts and Minds
and sprays Cambodia with Agent Orange,
some ask why so many have to die
while the war crawls on and goes nowhere.

Today began cold, wet, and gloomy
as I stand in front of the Hotel Majestic
encircled by Hanoi and Vietcong flags
and hard-nosed, head-bashing security.

First Madame Binh approaches
dressed up in a traditional Ao Dai,
then comes South Vietnam’s Lam
followed closely by the North’s Trinh.

Last in the solemn procession
is Secretary of State Rogers
hissed and jeered at by protestors
as his car warily nears.

There comes the signal of completion
followed by a rousing round of cheers
signaling that the fighting is over,
a futile conflict with nothing but loss.

But observing such a ruckus,
I feel alone at the curbside
only now fully realizing
the extent of my country’s defeat.