The Slavery Of Irony Poem by Lonnie Hicks

In the Slavery of Irony
Illegitimate Nouns arrive
and the wall of Other erects
its own wall against
sins covered up
in the pursuit
a better life, middle class
in a zero sum
Stockholm Syndrome Society
where crumbs eat the people
disguised as rats
where rats are seen as another race entirely
People Rats who live off the garbage of prosperity
in India, in China in Mexico
poverty so fierce
that whole generations
are buried in the holes in the garbage
covered over by still more prosperity-garbage coming in
for the rat people to eat and sell;
and when they wander away for even a day
they are fed to the ego of passer-bys
who blame them for smelling bad.

This new feudalism is the progress of the 21st century
where we shall all be buried one day in our own garbage
beneath that collapse that is sure to come.

Even as the Rat People revolt and show up at our doors
some will say 'just a minute, will you' I need to get myself a 'latte.'