The Beast In Us

     In the past few weeks, a bright and beautiful muse reminded me of how time is timeless and how the Gods(desses), and we in their image, craft our existences with a mere thought. The thought can then, through our conscious intention, become an object such as art; in this case—music and poetry. And it was the particular nature of my muse's artistic expression that drew me back to the passion of my youthful angst that enjoyed unveiling the zeitgeist of the time through poetry and song. 

     The other day, William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell echoed to me. Finding one of my literature anthologies from college (my B.A. is in Lit.), I read that, as well as several other of his works, and recalled how much I love that time in literature. Both the restrictive nature of specific meter and rhyme scheme, as well as the use of poetry for sociopolitical protest, always appealed to me in the paradox of working within strict parameters while letting loose the flames of righteous indignation. I largely abandoned this type of poetry in 1995 after being harshly criticized by my professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary poet, Stephen Dunn, who told me that my writing was “antiquated” and that I should try writing in free form. 

     We find ourselves in a particularly volatile and uncertain place in today's world. Our nation, here in the U.S., stands at risk of losing its democracy, the very essence of the foundation for which we fought nearly 250 years ago, freeing us from the tyranny of feudalism. Our country stands on the principles of the U.S. Constitution and especially in its Bill of Rights, and in true form, our country has used its right to Free Speech to protect our voices and effect change or make corrections. Should we begin to devolve to a time when the human brain primarily consisted of its hindbrain, lacking a frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex to intelligently think about our choice for barbarism (the fight or flight state of animals' survival-of-the-fittest), we can collectively gather, raising our arms and voices, and shout, "We the People!" in our demand for an equal society under the law.

     It is in the spirit of my literary forebears (rest in peace, Mr. Dunn, forgive my transgression) that I present a work-in-progress of 8 stanzas of 4 rhyming couplets, in iambic tetrameter, voicing how I feel about the immediate threat to the sovereignty of our Democracy.

Image generated by Gabrielle Cianfrani's poetic prompt,
in the spirit of Blake's etchings,
rendered by our robot overlords

The Beast In Us
Scrawled in the Ashes of Democracy

By An Angry American Bitch

Through battered gates of Now, I trod,
Where Reason’s corpse lies cold, unshod,
A land of trolls and liar’s din,
Where fascist brutes creep forth in sin.
The ICE-Men march, their chains a-clank,
To cage the meek on Freedom’s bank,
Their raids spotlight a savage might,
Cruelty masked in Star-Striped light.

Below, the DOGE-beast howls and bays,
circus of frauds in frenzied craze,
False prophets with a vacant stare,
Preach wealth to rocks, to empty air.
Palantir’s eye, all-seeing, gleans,
A Silicon God, wet data dreams,
Surveils the soul, and binds the free,
Spying lens, bends Liberty’s knee.

The pious swarm, with crosses high,
Their gospel twists, their tongues belie,
The religious right, a zealot throng,
Would bomb the world to prove it wrong.

Anti-Life, they raise their flag,
Books to ash, and thought to slag.

The tanking market, planned decay,
To fatten lords while serfs obey.

USAID, peace-pimp of yore,
Gets axed for laughs by budget Whore,
Allies wince, foolish tariffs slap,
Consumers caught in price war trap.
Schools churn dolts for TikTok reels,
Health’s a scam for snake-oil deals,
Disease we once kept well in line,
Co-opted by reviled Schwein.

The Constitution frays and splits,
A parchment torn by power’s fits,
Democracy, a threadbare jest,
Hangs bleeding on a tyrant’s chest.
Across the globe the darkness spread,
From Putin’s reign to Xi’s red thread,
The ballot box, a hollow shell,
Echoes screams from Freedom’s knell.

Democracy, her bleeding feet,

Now drags bare through every street—

And none will lift her from the dust 

For fear–AI and Elon Musk.

The Tree of Liberty was felled

By hands that once its branches held.

And still they cried, “Land of the Blessed!” 

As babe was torn from mother’s breast. 

In old time Hell, the devils danced,
But here they rule, their spears advanced,
Will camps return, the ovens hum,
While patriots beat a deafened drum?
The empty ghosts in MAGA caps,
Applaud as rights are left for scraps,
And as We Woke and rose to trust
Sun set on Freedom, Truth, and Just.

We drown in jetsam deep in mire,
Our Inferno lit by human fire,
The past and present join as one,
Damning all time, a world undone.
No angel comes, no savior’s call,
Just we, the fools, who forged it all—
A satire? No, a mirror’s gleam,
Of sleeping world’s fascist wet dream.

Gabrielle Cianfrani

April 5, 2025