Verses Versus Empire: II—The Obama Era

By A LeRoy

"A brave new presence in the politics of the globe."
San Francisco Review of Books

How Obama Made Trump (and Biden) Possible!

Confused? You should be! Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 before going on to kill record numbers in drone strikes and oversee unprecedented levels of deportation and whistleblower prosecution.

What to make of it? What to make of him?! Abdiel LeRoy takes us through the inferno of U.S. politics, while exposing the follies and fraud of empire.

That he does so in poetry, prose, and short stories sings of unprecedented literary achievement, his moods ranging from light-hearted satire and bawdy wordplay to searing irony and melancholic lament. Yet the reader is entertained throughout.

In this second (of three) Verses Versus Empire books, we witness environmental devastation, from BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to nuclear disaster at Fukushima to the Dakota Access Pipeline. We see the poisonous effects of U.S. imperialism with the rise of ISIS. And we lament injustice, from the persecution of whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden to unaccountable police officers slaughtering black and brown victims.

LeRoy demonstrates how Obama swept the path for Trump's accession, all amid ongoing attack on Constitutional protections, contempt for international law, and a perpetual war footing sustained by official falsehood.

These verses establish LeRoy as a poetic voice for our age, as if the early prophets spoke through Shakespeare and echoed to humanity today!

“If you wanted to extend the critical view of American political history into the present beyond Gore Vidal’s ‘Biography of the United States of America,’ these books would be the ticket… A joy to read and an invitation to keep your eyes open as to what is really going on.”
Rogier F. van Vlissingen

“So well done. A remarkable command of the language and great sensitivity. And doing all this in an entirely new way, wading into (almost) unexplored literary territory.”
Claude Forthomme

“Abdiel LeRoy’s poetry and prose offer intellectual nourishment for critical thinkers and seekers of truth… I highly recommend this book and its companion editions to anyone who seeks to escape from the ‘Matrix’.”
Annemarie M. Osborne

“LeRoy’s words dance.”
Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews, Top-10 Books of 2019

• Language: English
• Publisher: Unparagoned
• Release date: Sep 25, 2021

Book preview

Jeremiad

on Obama's condemnation of his former pastor

For calling War a type of terrorism,

the Reverend Jeremiah Wright invites

Obama's slick denouncement and derision

scorning his shepherd for divisive slights.

---

Yes, Truth divides prophets from kings and profit.

The Holy Spirit sunders spirit and soul ¹

and by that sword, a man may even find

his enemies within his own household! ²

---

And so, Barack, new baptised a Barabbas, ³

has blindly blundered from the narrow way, ⁴

as no aspiring emperor can afford

offending corporate kingmakers today

---

who, shocked the label terrorist should slander

their tax-payer-funded military might,

enforce a media-sanctioned code of conduct

by which Obama is more wrong than Wright!

March 2008

Down-Hill

on Senator Hillary Clinton's run for the White House

She voted for War, and still she pleas

we must forgive her for that,

forgive her that Wal-Mart membership, ¹

forgive each corporate hat.

---

And yet she applauds what we have done —

this claim she's boasted of much —

that Iraq has received the gift of freedom

if only they'd see it as such, ²

---

A gift she'd extend to others

to favor the Zionist clan

with repeated threats, aired on TV,

to obliterate Iran. ³

---

And while on the subject of military things,

she seeks credentials and praise

for dodging snipers in Bosnia

as children gave her bouquets. ⁴

---

The toughest job in the world, she says,

of the White House she wants to take on. ⁵

What chauffeured world is she living in

where every sweatshop is gone?

---

Belligerent and bellicose,

she'd keep the dominions in thrall,

as if the fair sex came descended from Mars

and not by Venus' call. ⁶

---

Yet star-struck Democrats in chorus call,

extol her and cheer her the more,

unleash the warlike Hillary, ⁷

let slip the Bitch of War. ⁸

April 2008

Sty Me

on Sarah Palin, Republican running mate to John McCain

Obama could have said a nastier thing

Than lipstick on a pig and mentioned her

By name. But this quip, with a comic ring,

At Sarah Palin's cost has been inferred. ¹

---

She's crying foul and squeals in protest bitter,

Yet she herself spreads lots of muck around

Making a stink, and spawned a mess ² of litter,

While pooh-poohing the commons' public ground.

---

Adept at peddling for her John his will,

Mouthing the senate member's part in heat,

She works the corporate trough, taking her fill,

The better to enlarge her porky treat!

September 2008

Obama, What Art Thou?

on election of Barack Obama to U.S. presidency

A reign of terror, a reign of error

now draws to its overdue close,

and finally the White House will house a man

the voters actually chose!

---

A new chapter promised, the page is turned,

the pundits take a fresh look.

Is a new act written in the epic today

or still the same old playbook?

---

In jubilation, in spectacle,

in gatherings, parties, applause,

can the Democrat leaders really shun

their time-honored tendence for War?

---

Euphoria is a powerful thing,

akin in its power to Fear,

to overcome reason, record, and rhyme,

even when Truth is near.

---

Remember Tony Blair, the hope he brought

to Britain a decade before?

He promised change from Conservative rule

but gave us even more!

---

But let me not rain on Obama's day

with History's quibbles and gripes

nor impugn the flag, that field of stars,

deep-dyed with bloody-red stripes.

---

With celebrations across the land,

Barack, America's expectant:

Roll up your sleeves, you're going to need

a lot of disinfectant! ¹

Nov. 4, 2008

Obamoration

on President-elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech

This time must be different, a new dawn at hand,

Barack rings the changes of Change,

puts his hands on the arc of history.

Such are his compounds strange. ¹

---

Work harder! he cries to the exhausted masses,

"Make ready the future, prepare!

We've come a long way, but further to go!"

The slogans are written on air.

---

New songs sung in praise of him, his image unfurled,

new paeans the peons write,

but drilling down to reality,

his theme is: Might is Right.

---

His plan is to bloat, already grotesque,

an inflated military beast,

scourge Iran and Afghanistan, while Israel's rapes

will not be curtailed in the least.

---

Russia's pariahed and Syria strafed, ²

Pakistan he's poised to attack.

Gone is the anti-War verve as he keeps

a residual force in Iraq.

---

The free republics of South America too

are slandered with new lies.

How dare they keep their resources themselves?

How dare they expel U.S. spies?

---

No brother to innocents condemned is Barack,

he complies with the sentence of death.

For Davis, Mumia, Foster, et al, ³

Obama wastes no breath.

---

Meanwhile, executive power amasses,

Orwellian prophecies loom;

the fabricated War on Terror

still seeps from the smoke-filled room.

---

More nuclear power is another scheme

To keep our TV screens bright,

more radiation, more toxic waste;

he even paints black coal as white! ⁴

---

And the human body is still to be mined

though in God's image made,

a for-profit resource while care is denied

and drugs are a sanctioned trade.

---

The blank-check bailout he supported too

for highly-placed Wall Street friends.

The deeper the corporate fraud involved,

the more the Treasury spends.

---

And where was he when brave Kucinich

tabled impeachment in the House? ⁵

Obama like the rest of them

was quiet as a mouse.

---

Seems Power corrupts and closes the mind,

regressive his tendencies show.

Few are immune to the love of money

when corporate contributors flow.

---

The cabinet's appointed, cronies installed,

with many a familiar face;

insiders resume their exalted stations,

the same machinery's in place.

---

So many words and so little said,

it's the fashion of these times.

The evil of empty words is at large;

Homer warned in his epic lines. ⁶

---

So while the honeymoon is underway,

read the pre-nuptial fineprint,

ride into the sunset but note the next day

new weapons in the sunlight glint.

---

America's history's is hardly an arc

of electoral vicissitude,

but a straight line bent on imperial lust,

exploited servitude.

---

Bush gave poor cover to the Empire's plan,

his credibility too thin,

but now with polished, Protean Obama,

it's poised to really cash in.

---

Barack is wearing a different mask,

but his substance from old cloth is cut.

A well-thumbed thesaurus can not conceal:

he's working a well-worn rut

---

though, just as Israel's detractors are charged

with being anti-Semitic,

the charge of racism will surely follow

the forthright Obama critic.

Fresh lipstick on the pig, how bright the sheen,

regard but hold your nose;

the electorate clings once more to false hope,

votes a turd to be a rose! ⁷

November 2008

2009

Time Out

on Bush's departure from the White House

No censure, shackling, sitting in the stocks,

no pillory to serve as bitter pill;

neither impeachment nor imprisonment,

and to the end they paid him deference still.

---

It was mere Time, the mere passage of Time,

unseated Bush from his exalted place.

Meantime, we lost what could have been betimes

while Time etched horrors in the prisoner's face.

---

None smashed to shards the narrow-necked hourglass

that miserly parsed out each lazy grain.

Deaf to the victim's pleas, Time trickled down,

while new atrocities deepened Time's stain.

---

At times, Time heals, but oftentimes decays:

Time rots, Time rusts, Time crumbles and corrodes.

Time steals, Time kills, Time tarnishes, corrupts.

As death-tolls mount, Time putrefies, erodes.

---

Honoring precedent, Time shakes foul hands,

pays honeyed homage with stirring oration,

revises truth to dupe Posterity

and thanks his forebear's service to our nation. ¹

---

Time's dust lies heaped on ancient lies

and History cares not to check its facts.

Leaders look forward to forget the past ²

so Time renews the tyrant's bloody acts.

---

It does not ask, nor does it want to know

of stolen votes, who brought the towers down.

Nor does it dig deep to investigate

Where did the money go? Who runs this town?

---

Time sweeps atrocity beneath the rug;

it makes excuses, obfuscates, and stalls,

dodges the question and cannot recall,

demurs, distracts, prevaricates, stonewalls.

---

Time blights, breaks down; Time wearies, withers, wastes;

as hunger heightens, uses and depletes;

saps energy, exhausts, softens resolve.

Its ticking war drum beats to self defeat.

…

Only the bitter winds refused that day

to suffer Bush red carpet for his feet, ³

so, walking harshly into that bad night,

oblivion beckoned and infernal heat.

---

Fitting, perhaps, that Cheney was wheeled out,

Who, moving boxes, injured his own back.

Small recompense indeed for such a man

who tortured innocents upon the rack!

---

What could we have attempted with resolve

to hasten these departures overdue

When words splashed harmless on brute hearts of stone

and in the Capitol new monsters grew?

---

The White House reinhabited, swept clean,

where will these demons go now in unrest?

To wander arid ways? Or to return

with worse-yet legions to a squalid nest? ⁴

---

O Retrospect, O Hindsight, let me ask

what might have been if I had been more true?

Time's luxury's to say, I told you so! ⁵

And give pause to reflect, regret, and rue.

---

Now Time sweeps in — with faultless, frothy phrase —

the forty-fourth to frame for fiefdom power.

Nothing to say, but flawless execution

Donning the cloak for his appointed hour!

Jan. 20, 2009

Ignobel

Listen on SoundCloud

I checked the dateline twice: October 9 th.

Not April 1 st? No hoax, no prank, no jest?

Obama's got the Nobel Prize for Peace?

Some sick joke played by pundits of the West?

---

Intelligence-insulting irony

that this new rider of the imperial beast

should garner that or any accolade

while daily orchestrating War's increase,

---

Concealing torture practices from view,

refusing to endorse the land-mine ban,

recycling still the 9/11 myth,

while doubling troop ranks in Afghanistan.

---

O History's muse, report what you have