Dear comrades, II

Dear comrades, we see you
now
everywhere
on
Facebook

we see you
clown
and sermonise
in tweets
of desperate guise

while fattening
off our purse

rolling around on fairways
and on greens
posing
next to your fancy cars
or some American superstar

patting each other
on the back
lips and cheeks
glistening at tables
of half-eaten food

in photographs
at expensive restaurants
in New York, London and Beijing.
You name it, the city
has been eaten
in

drinks drank
of acquired taste
sophistication
acquiring
far more

tender
than a worker makes in years.

We see you
ride
into town
playing West Wing or CIA
playing gangster
on someone else’s coin

our coin, our coin
for your acting dream
on lurid sets
of chintz that flash of thievery.

We’re all actors
in this
I suppose
us
the five cent extras

but we see you
also
headless
chickens
over hot coals
when we’ve seen enough.

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