Dave Bonta's "Statecraft" is only a few lines long, but it packs in a sharp, bleak view of how power works. The opening command, "Give orders / to give orders," runs in a circle: the purpose of ordering people around is simply to keep ordering people around. Nothing is built or achieved. Authority exists to sustain itself.
Then the poem turns to a question: "A falcon on the hill or a gallows— / which is king?" One image is wild and natural, a predator that rules from above. The other is a human machine for punishment. By asking which one is king, the speaker suggests that rule might come down to the same thing in both cases: force and fear. The dash hangs the question in the air, and the poem doesn't answer it.
The speaker sounds dry and unimpressed, almost deadpan. The mood is cold and a little ominous, like a quiet warning that statecraft may be nothing more than a polished name for domination.