(Walking into darkness like a deranged rocking horse who’s seen it all)

[written October 2016]

I’ve stared down the barrel of your epistemology
& I’m not willing to bite the bullet.

I won’t “hold my nose & pull the lever” just to appease 
the man behind the curtain.
He can stay right there 
with his wet dream of capitalism & war.

I’ll be here in my tinfoil hat reading the newspaper
& seeing through the lies
of puppeteers who want me to think
a $35 overdraft fee & a can of beans 
is somehow the new American Dream.