They leave him
Lying there,
No fanfare,
Over the top public
Displays of grief,
Protracted processions,
Overwrought eulogies.
A lifeless piece of meat
Laying in the street,
Less than human,
What they really
Think of him,
Why they kill without
A second’s pause.
His town isn’t like
It used to be,
Main street was always
Bustling with people
Living their lives,
Sharing some conversation
About the weather or something
Going on at the mine.
He walks down tattered streets,
Boarded windows announcing
The memory of former tenants,
An occasional dour face averting
His gaze, nothing to do
Down here anymore and
Nobody who cares about any of it.
Jaw clenching, he vows to force
Someone to listen by voting for
The same people who did this.
I hear the same words
Coming from different
Mouths in slow motion,
With great conviction,
No doubts or hesitation.
They all describe
A disconsolate landscape of
Hopelessness and futility,
An entrenched acceptance of
Callousness and cruelty.
We’re all on our own,
They mutter grimly.
I’m transported to their
Formative years when someone
Important told them that.
Each and every
Sordid action
Shockingly demonstrates
They care nothing
For the less fortunate,
Indecency flaunted as virtue,
Cruelty the preferred currency,
A landscape littered with bodies,
Just another piece of refuse
Tossed aside by loathsome ghouls.
You have no idea
What my life is like
If you’ve never been
Called a derogatory name,
Denied a loan,
Been turned away
From renting a home,
Had your integrity or
Intelligence questioned,
Watched some person
Cross the street because
They see you coming,
Been harassed by people
In positions of authority,
Told you’re less than human,
Kept as property to
Make other people money,
Just because of
The color of your skin.
Profoundly mediocre,
Unsavory, disreputable,
Elevated to
Undeserved status by
Followers projecting
Their insecurities upon them,
Characterless swindlers
Preying on the defenseless,
Benefiting from misery.
Swarms of zealous
Dark figures fan out
Across the city,
There’s a mission
To be accomplished here,
Must protect all that
Is sacred, rid our
Shores of this horrid
Menace, return back
To the days when we
Only turned on
Each other.
That almost imperceptible
Difference in the air,
When we’re not quite sure
The seasons are changing
But some primeval instinct
Is telling us
That things are not quite
As they should be, that
Some new force is
Insinuating itself,
A historical whisper,
We reassure ourselves
It can never happen here.
She knew what it
Was like growing up
Without food on the table
Because the weather didn’t
Cooperate that season,
Her parents staring
Forlornly into the distance.
She spent many days
Wandering down dusty lanes
Thinking of the time when
She would leave that
Place and start anew
Somewhere where the
Buildings reached for
The clouds, where anything
Was possible, where she
Could run the show.
She made it to the
Halls of power and she
Never missed an opportunity
To destroy families like hers.
