Huddled together
Hoping the next one
Doesn’t hit them,
Knowing that it will
Slaughter someone.
Always at the mercy of
Cold-blooded rulers
Who couldn’t care less
About what happens
To people like them.
Stepping off the bus,
Lily walks home
Past rusting cars,
Graffiti-covered walls,
Shuttered storefronts,
Garbage-strewn gutters,
To the doorway of
Her bleak building
Where there’s never a
Moment’s peace in the
Small apartment
She lives in.
A group of people decide
That it’s important to
Care for one another, that
Outrageous imbalances in wealth
Only lead to suffering,
That their society thrives
When every person does well,
That the most vulnerable
Among them deserve to
Experience lives of dignity,
That peace is real,
The common good the norm.
Some will admit it or
Reveal themselves through
Coarse comments or actions,
Others keep it under wraps
Unless they’re around
Their peers, in which case
It’s a free for all of
Jovial denigration.
Underneath it all
The thing they’ve been told
Their entire lives,
That they’re the rightful
Heirs to the throne.
How to be a pompous rich person:
Be at the right place
At the right time,
Then pretend your success
Is due to your
Exceptional clairvoyance,
Superior specialness,
Rare ability to
Toil harder than
The person washing your dishes
In the tony restaurants you frequent.
Also, look down
On human beings who haven’t
Had the same luck as you,
Say stuff about how they
Aren’t driven, and believe it,
After all, your
Flimsy self-worth and
Brittle facade
Depend on it.
If only there were
Some proven way to
Extract the hardness
From the world and
Replace it with
Softness, kindness,
Empathy, all the things
Damaged people recoil from
And push to the side
As they destroy the world…
There is, and it’s called
Healing one’s hurts.
It’s one thing
To oppose everything
And build your entire
Reason for being on
The premise that you’re
There to block the
Fabricated malfeasance of
An empirically well-meaning
Leader, but quite another
To find yourself in
Charge of things and
Prove beyond a shadow of
A doubt that you never
Knew how to govern or
Even had that intention.
He has no qualms
About letting children
Starve or succumb to
Illness, it’s a
Dog eat dog world
As far as he’s concerned,
And people have it
Coming according to
What he calls morality.
Not much is happening
Now in this little town
Left behind by people
Who moved on when they
Had extracted everything.
Gary walks past the
Old plant, reminiscing
About he and his friends
Trading barbs while they
Assembled machines that
Made things happen.
All sense of purpose gone,
Nothing left but
Bewilderment,
Nobody listening.
