As to when it began I can only speculate.
I would guess it began in the empires of ancient history,
in the inquisitions, in Papal infiltration of British intelligence
after the Catholic Church was outlawed by the Henry VIII,
bred in America without the knowledge of the English people
by provocateur spies from the British Military we twice defeated,
nurturing private revenge in bases off our coasts,
in league with racists
and Nazi war criminal scientists, who were given treacherous access
to our laboratories.

Long ago
they infiltrated the military industrial complex
and the institutions of higher education which serve it
and the government agencies which feed it--
slithering pervasively into their core
as a snake engulfs a struggling bird
in an Audubon engraving.

They lurk in the databases of intelligence agencies,
in the laboratories of our medical institutions,
in the control rooms of media conglomerates.

Long ago
they began to set mean snares
to destroy the lives
of poets.

We ask for sanctuary