day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY THREE

THE SMELL OF DEATH 

“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”

Mao Tse-tung

As a Vietnam veteran,
A regime change mercenary,
I can still smell the smell of death
Fifty-two years later of the three to five million
Civilians the US murdered in South East Asia.
Now, the smell of death lingers in the streets each time
Another black man is murdered by the police,
Its smell getting stronger and stronger
Each time the orange-tinted fascist authoritarian white nationalist
Stirs his storm troopers into bloodlust action,
The desire for extreme violence and carnage,
To defend the “freedom” to put profits over people
As the election for the 46th president nears.
It’s the smell that permeates the divide
In the disunited states of amerika.
It’s the smell of a failed state
Collapsing upon itself like a black hole,
Sucking the energy and livelihood
From its disenfranchised and marginalized citizenry.
It’s the smell of malice and hatred
And vulgar meanness in the hearts and minds
Of tiny nonthinkers, lacking compassion
And empathy for humanity
And their fellow man.
It’s the same kind of smell
The tangerine-tinted fascist made
When he said, “I could stand
In the middle of Fifth Avenue
And shoot somebody
And I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
Gun sales are up in amerika.
I hear the sounds of weapons,
Small arms: pistols and rifles,
Locking and loading.
In all probability,
There is an orange-colored fat chance
The new civil war is about to commence.

--Victor Henry