Inspired by "Piazzolla - Libertango (Piano Solo)" finished at 11.21pm (4.18.2022) "The Business of Empire" That ruthless wretch! That vile fiend, montego. What new villainy is this That todays news brings? The head of parliament No mean patriarchy The low dogs elected. All the citizenry, up in arms. The streets at first, when day broke Filled with smoke, the black sentries like obelisk men, faceless and alien. The days report, gunfire report. And newsmen report, mouthpieces report, all is calm, all is normal. Feign concern, through false teeth. a thousand commentators, a thousand opinions, static, noise. While people in their homes, all across the jaded nation, watch with tired concern beaten into their worry lines. The new normal, the new outrage. By nightfall, orange flairs. The obelisk men almost invisible in their darkness, like blackguards, standing silent, their shields. The mirror shades, of sentries, with machineguns. The business of democracy. An appearance of caeser! Caeser himself. The crowd roars disapproval. Like Nero had scrapped/crawled his way from the maggot-covered abyss appearing from the palace of the common man, the tomb of liberty beneath gusts of wind, the presidential copter a steel devil, to ferry him, across the black-streaming throngs of freedom-hungry masses, like crossing the styx. As the unmarked vehicles, the vanish vans, in solemn lines, come to claim their unpersoned dissidents. In the land of the free. Under the sign of the scorpion. Like dragons swallowing up dirty water. Above the crowd, the screams, the faceless arrests, the tear gas, and staccato, a newsmans vacant camera records, the fires in the reflection of the lens, a blackmirror, a redlight blinking, transmitting to no one. The revolution will not be televised. *Their* revolution. Somewhere distant, in tall glass towers, cigars are lit. Fat men, with crooked smiles, and curly hair, congratulate one another. The business of empire.