cupping
the rust, drinking the kool-aid
several
times the planes buzzed low
across
the tree line, strafing bullets
as
if taking directions from
an
indiscriminate master
of
chaotic death from above
but
I knew better, the resistance
had
already blown up main supply lines
to
the refineries and munitions plants
a
few hundred kilometers away
and
needed cover so members
of
the resistance could just be regular folks
out
milling around participating
in
the rusted remnant clawed cages
of
our one party capitalism
America
didn't used to be like this
occasionally
when the home brew
and
home grown got passed around small fires
in
the ramshackle enclaves that have become
for
better or for worse what a neighborhood was
stories
are heard of America's blind lust
for
wealth and power and a bloody disdain
for
asking for the truth to be told
for
the point of discussion
we
used to be pomp and circumstance
paraded
milk queens and the chance
to
win the lottery every week
holding
dreams in our pockets
when
the jobs went elsewhere
truth
was, productivity and wealth building
was
only ever for a very few
and
was at the very heart of this behemoth
this
runaway train of Liberty
that
left the station with no way
of
getting off the rails unless
a
revolution occurred
and
with the way words became monstrous chains
that
could no longer be trusted to mean something
people
became quiet and left their heart and souls to die
as
the soup lines increased and welfare became
one
of many scarlet letters
occasionally
you hear these stories
from
one of the ancients as we call them now
only
a few people survived the virus epidemics
that
everyone believed was deliberately released
to
ease the burden of feeding a world hungry
for
what America had stolen
like
some powder wigged pampered Prometheus
before
books were destroyed and electronic databases
could
no longer be verified
these
ancients told the truth
in
their sad but very much alive eyes
and
when they spoke, they did so, carefully
because
being old was still very much
against
the law here and punishable
by
death on the spot
because
no one was allowed
to
tell the truth to someone
other
than themselves
when
he would stop talking
we
just huddled in quiet
covering
the fire for a bit
as
the planes began to pull away
from
the outlying forest edge
they
might be back someone whispered
and
with that the old man
who
spoke earlier of kindness
and
picket fences and rosebushes
at
the end of May in bloom
put
on a hoodie
so
he could look like everyone else
and
went away in the dark
and
we began to wonder
as
we always did when
someone
like him spoke
was
America only ever a dream
that
someone made up
to
keep our hope alive
EJR
©
boy, wish I could write like this...
ReplyDelete"and with the way words became monstrous chains
that could no longer be trusted to mean something people became quiet and left their heart and souls to die as the soup lines increased and welfare became one of many scarlet letters"