The documentaries say the rich figured out
that too much democracy and education  
just feeds discontent and revolution,
so keep the masses poor and stupid.
Now we sit through dull classroom hours
and play out love like scenes in a movie
while we march over hills into graves so expensive
our grandchildren will have to pay off the debt.

But when the mobs tear down the TV towers,
burn the mansions, throw food to the crowds,
and hurl the heads of the rich into the river,
those of us who have seen it all before,
the instigators and perpetrators, will be
at the jails and madhouses opening the doors.

Douglas Cole has published Four collections of poetry: Interstate (Night Ballet Press); Western Dream, (Finishing Line Press), The Dice Throwers, (Liquid Light Press), Bali Poems (Wordtech Press), as well as a novella, Ghost (Blue Cubicle Press). His work is in anthologies such as Best New Writing (Hopewell Publications), Bully Anthology (Kentucky Stories Press) and Coming Off The Line (Mainstreet Rag Publishing). His work also appears or is forthcoming in journals such as The Chicago Quarterly Review, Owen Wister Review, Iconoclast, Slipstream, Red Rock Review, Wisconsin Review, Two Thirds North, San Pedro River Review, Badlands, Common Ground Review, The Ocean State Review, and Midwest Quarterly. He received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry; the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House; and First Prize in the “Picture Worth 500 Words” from Tattoo Highway. His website is douglastcole.com.