free verse

Echo Chamber

He fancies himself a
Person of above-average
Intellect, a distinction
Which allows him to make
Pronouncements about all
Kinds of thorny topics
About which he has little or
No expertise, except in
His own mind, building a
Rather robust echo chamber
Where the only thing that
Matters is what he thinks and
No other point of view has
Any hope of getting in,
A complete divorce from any
Verifiable facts, which
Leads him to
Make decisions that
Deeply hurt others.

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Somewhere Else

I can tell
As he’s talking that
He’s somewhere else.

I ask him about it
Without receiving
A clear answer.

Sometimes
Questions
Aren’t welcome.

Playing Games with Other People’s Money

A wealthy banker
Playing games with
Other people’s money,
His slippery maneuvers
Causing the economy itself
To collapse, buried under
An avalanche of deceit,
Gets paid hundreds
Of times more than
The diligent person
Washing his dishes at the
Upscale restaurant he
Frequents for lunch.

Formerly Hidden

It was over when
He started spouting
Jarringly vituperative
Untruths and fabrications
As if they were
Empirical facts.

So strange to think
That there used to be
A bright intellect there,
Furtively usurped by
All-encompassing fear
And absence of love.

A moment when an ordinary
Human being can no longer
Contain the inconsistencies,
Succumbing to
Formerly hidden impulses
With feral abandon.

Confirmation

They seem to only admire
What other people like,
As if the only element
That lends authenticity
To any effort is
The approval of
Someone, anyone, else.
Roaming together,
Looking to each other
For confirmation.

A Country That Lost Its Way

Allow me to tell
You a lovely little story
About a country that
Lost its way because it
Believed in hatred and
Division rather than
The common good and love.
It’s the tale of every
Civilization that has
Come crashing down while
Shrugging its shoulders
And wondering why it
Happened, human beings utterly
Convinced that competition
And conflict are more important
Than helping one another succeed,
People who don’t understand
We’re all in this together.

Contradictions and Dissonance

He fails to see
The blatant inconsistencies
In what he says he believes
And what he does,
A detail which is completely
Lost on him,
As is much of his life,
A swirling mess of
Contradictions and dissonance,
Unreconciled,
Unwhole,
Unpleasant.

Collective Reassurance

Uninspired people huddling
Together for collective
Reassurance, afraid to
Be anything other than
What the prevailing
Decree of the day
Happens to be,
Repeating all the
Same phrases, parroting
Approved sayings,
Purposelessly fitting in,
Melding into insipidness.

Horde

A miserable horde
Of maudlin, unhappy beings,
So far away from their
Cores that they have
No idea what else to do
But lash out at others
For living as they can’t.