the corps

have found a way
to shake inside their iron boots
& still let everyone think
that their benevolence
is in fact
matter-of-fact
with everyone eating
at the trough
diving into a new bag of monsanto hash
spread evenly
egalitarian in fact they say
unless of course your food stamps
have already run out
or you don't have bus fare
or your bones are too cold
to get up from under the covers
since they turned off the heat

and for every iron boot pair
with or without the make-believe
there are 99 barefoot pairs
.....waiting for spring

--- e b bortz

(published in opednews.com, Jan 25, 2012)