Boots on the Boulevard

 Marines roll into Los Angeles

tires hum like Gestapo hymns
olive drab shadows stretch
across neon-lit streets.

A city holds its breath
lungs tight as gulag chains.  

 

National Guard
march like Hitler’s S.A. reborn
batons gleam under streetlights
mirrors of Mao’s Red Guard glare.
Their boots stamp a rhythm
echoes of Stalin’s purges
a cadence to choke dissent.  

 

Protesters scatter like leaves
voices silenced
muffled by the weight
of a flag turned iron-heavy.

Is this protection
or Idi Amin’s fist in disguise? 

 

Helicopters hum above
Lenin’s ghost in their blades
whirring paranoia’s anthem.

Every camera a Stasi eye
every tweet a dossier.
The people, branded enemies
cower like Weimar’s outcasts.  

 

Trump’s orders
a scepter swung wide
turn cities to chessboards
pawns pinned under khaki knights.

The Posse Comitatus Act
torn like Tiananmen’s dreams.  

 

A dictator’s playbook
dog-eared, rebranded.
Fear is the oldest currency
Hitler spent it
Mao banked it
now it’s minted anew.  

 

The stars above L.A. dim
smothered by drone buzz
a nation wonders
whispering in group chats:
Are we the people

or the enemy now?