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The Institute of Peace:
Constitution Avenue, N.E.
The Institute of Peace looks down on Lincoln
From high atop her perch on Constitution.
She has the hollow belly of a beast.
She yearns to eat the people piece by piece.
She spreads a sharp aluminum of wings
Over a nation that should fear the thing.
The city lies in beauty and repose,
In quiet slumber, naked and exposed.
I see the beast and slowly I approach.
The borders of her precinct I encroach.
Then from a hidden window of the stone
A heavy armored woman comes. Alone?
No. Three more armored come with guns. Police
Whose badges read, “The Institute of Peace.”
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Poet’s Note: A federal judge recently blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the congressionally funded U.S. Institute of Peace (a Deep-State front for nefarious activities), an organization scrutinized by the Department of Government Efficiency two months ago. In March, DOGE attempted entry. Meantime, to hide its criminality the Institute destroyed a terabyte of records.
I composed the verse in 2012.
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Michael Curtis is an architect, sculptor, painter, historian, and poet, who is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Common Sense Society. He has taught and lectured at universities, colleges, and museums, including The Institute of Classical Architecture, The National Gallery of Art, et cetera; his pictures and statues are housed in over four hundred private and public collections, including The Library of Congress, The Supreme Court, et alibi; his verse has been published in over thirty journals; his work in the visual arts can be found at TheClassicalArtist.com, his essays at TheStudioBooks.com, and his architecture can be found at TheBeautifulHome.org.
The irony you unveil, Michael, is yet another example of the treachery and deceit being virtuously exposed by DOGE. An excellent piece –
What has happened to Washington, DC? This monstrosity came after my last time there. The building appears to be transparent, but all the time housing a group usurping funds with no mission, but to waste funds and perpetrate cultural inane insanities. This has got to stop! Thank you for the poem exposing this to public awareness! You have performed a great service.
“The Institute of Peace” has long been a front for Deep-State activities that are utterly ungoverned by United States interests. The Heritage Foundation report on the organization and its left-wing political bias is devastating.
You give us only a surface-level view of what this nefarious organization does — but it is enough.
I like the imagery of “She spreads a sharp aluminum of wings.” It expresses the coldness of the place. If I remember correctly, the DOGE team was able to recover that terabyte of info.
It’s hard to imagine a building of more hollow appearance. The poem depicts hard edges to the hunger of this “beast.”