{"id":302645,"date":"2025-09-08T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=302645"},"modified":"2025-09-07T09:29:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T08:29:49","slug":"secretary-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/09\/secretary-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretary of War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

6 Sep 2025<\/em><\/p>\n

He hung up a sign that said Secretary of War,
\nsnapped a picture for the socials,
\nshut the door,
\ntook a swig of Jameson straight from the bottle,
\nthen sat down and fondled the revolver in his desk drawer
\nlike a little boy playing with his penis.<\/p>\n

Visions of cruise missiles danced through his head,
\naircraft carriers and nuclear submarines
\nand tiny middle eastern bodies blown to bits by glorious inventory.
\nMushroom clouds flashed in his eyes
\nas he caressed the trigger with an index finger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey call me the Secretary of War,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cThey call me the Secretary of War.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did not feel the robins in his chest
\nor hear the red-winged blackbirds trilling in his hair.
\nThe electricity of the flesh was a stranger to him.
\nExuberance was a deadbeat dad who never called.<\/p>\n

Outside the Pentagon walls a cicada roared unnoticed
\nand the grass sang ancient hymns to the sun god.
\nPeople bustled in and bustled out,
\ntheir minds buzzing with Palantir porn,
\ntheir lips casting spells of Raytheon and ruin.<\/p>\n

Under the rubble of a far away building
\na child reached out a hand in the darkness.
\nHer cries were silenced by gulps of whiskey
\nin the office of the Secretary of War.<\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper<\/em>. Contact: <\/em>admin@caitlinjohnstone.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – caitlinjohnstone.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He hung up a sign that said Secretary of War,
\nsnapped a picture for the socials,
\nshut the door,
\ntook a swig of Jameson straight from the bottle,
\nthen sat down and fondled the revolver in his desk drawer
\nlike a little boy playing with his penis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":302646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[112,868,249,70],"class_list":["post-302645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-format","tag-pentagon","tag-poetry","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302647,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302645\/revisions\/302647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}