Nothing New Under This Sun

“And now let us welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”
                                                    - Rainier Maria Rilke


An openly criminal empire.
An abandoned society.
A rogue mafia cartel gone ham.

Who are we kidding Rainier, 
these things have always happened before. 
But we write them as if they are new 
every time they happen to us 
as individuals for the first time.

Your republic is taking on water 
for the first time in your life.
Your republic hasn’t been a republic 
for a long time, but this is the first time 
they stopped pretending to be a republic 
in your lifetime.

We never had an actual pink slip to Chile in the 70’s.
Now we have one for Venezuela.

	“If you break it, you buy it.”
		- General Colin Powell