[Newspoetry] FBI Alert for Five Men Based on Hoax

[Donald L Emerick]

When do these bartering informants lie to cops?

They lie when they can gain from lying
more than they can gain from telling truth.

Disincentives work like negatives,
symmetric foes of plus incentives
oppose nothing in a looking glass
on either side of which stand numbers;
only accidents of direction
distinguish hurt-pain from joy-pleasure,
sadist truths define masochristians.

Secret words whispered in hiding
have always been undemocratic,
for they deny the enlightenment,
they deny impartial inspection,
they deny public access to facts:
officials masquerade their power
by making out inside Kleine's bottle.

Bandits are only cops in reverse.
That's the conclusion of their thinking --
that it's all only about power
in its moneyed exchange currencies;
what flows is all that ever matters,
nothing comes to fix flow itself,
power melts morals rationally.

An ode is an otious teaching.
Anodes form an odious leeching
of power flowing from source to sink
when informants disinform police,
when police are too stupid to think
that corruption is like corrosion,
method's natural by-production.

Thanks for listening,
Donald L Emerick