Behind the scenes, incubating slowly

in darkness, faceless moguls emerge:

bankers, silicon kings, regime-makers,

master-minders of fiefdoms,

conglomerate giants, power-mongers

(...empire-echoes of ago…)

buyers and bribers of democracies

underminers, intimidators of

even the beloved ideals of global good.

Purveyors of coercion and influence;

maestros of manipulation

and hidden agendas:

the very children of Machiavelli himself.

 

What’s different from the emperors

 of yore

with their puppet popes, slave eunuchs

mafia hit-men, Jezebel poisoners

kamikaze and suicide bombers?

Or, the other way round

- popes with their puppet emperors:

supporting or usurping each other

in turns, in the self-interest of elites

fronted by phoney rhetoric,

media spokespersons, patronage,

facebook personas and public alibis.

 

At the bottom of it all lies

the dragon staches of gold:

Treasuries indeed, as well as in real time

hidden in vaults under Swiss streets

as well as in spaces’ cyber clouds;

the hard currency and wherewithal

 for enterprise and investment:

 trade balance and dreaded deficits

despite the ease of quantitative easing

(by those fingers on the trigger).

Only the future pays that price.

 

The controllers of codes and cyphers,

facial recognition and eye scan tech

of statistical projection and analysis

boils down to the cave-man strategy

of subsistent, fear-based attitudes,

of surveillance

and rationalised domination

 with subjugation or destruction of all

 - in the name of peace and stability -

if still deemed a threat or challenge.

 

What’s the difference between

nomad traders, bartering beads,

monsters abducting fairy princesses,

subtle or overt ransom for hostages,

pay-offs for cover-ups,

treaties based on wild inequality

and the wheeling and dealing of today?

The sanctions for sideways assets,

the mollycoddling of invested interest

the intention behind the spin?

 

What’s the difference from

war-painted warriors stomping

their stuff at the city gates

or the neighbouring territories’ doorstep

and meerkat, gorilla, tiger or stickleback

stating their case, guarding their patch

and nationalist mobs, chanting;

oligarchic diversionary tactics

of hyping-up patriotic rabbles

 - for votes, for complicity?...

...underpinned by personal survival.

And under that, financial liquidity.

Trading deals:

 

The arms-trading industry - allegedly

to support and enforce “the Good”.

Whose or which, undefined.

In effect, the manufacturers pocket.

 

Aid - to feed the destitute and oppressed

which - behind the tear-jerky adverts - means another way to coerce and extort

those smaller states, sets, sects and folk

to compliant proxy-dom.

 

Health programs - by way of lovely philanthropy,

assuring everyone how nice they are.

No mention of the need for employable and productive global workforces

that are tractable -

besides accessing profitable resources.

Which leads straight to

the massive incentive of safe venues for:

 

 Hospitality - Just for holidays, surely?

What could kings with queens abetting

do in their spare time and palaces,

on their island paradises, 

exclusive beach resorts,

wilderness refuges with all mod cons

and wherewithal to globe-trot, sky-hop

without staff, security personnel,

script-writers, gardeners, pilots, mechanics, doctors, electricians

egg-heads to work the reactors

and tot up the algorithms?

Didn’t the Greek gods descend

in order to enslave the biped things

for boring work.

The pharaohs, to build their pyramids,

Ghengis and his ilk to conscript for their conquests and divers eugenical projects

- whilst fathering half of their continent

in so doing.

What’s news?

 

Only hitch to this clever, perennial plan

is the worker bees.

 If the honey goes sour.

The Spin doesn’t spin any more.

Prone to swarm:

water cannon, tear gas, Gmo, novichok?

...they might metamorphose!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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