poem of the day 08.22.13

decline and fall of the roman empire

it gives you pause

to live in a nation

that makes an enemy of a twenty-five year old kid

and throws him in jail for thirty-five years

for doing what he thought was right for his nation

but continues to let

every thieve

hustler

and fringe lunatic

have a hand in running this nation

it gives you pause

or maybe just a shrug because we’re so used

to this kind of bullshit

coming out of the capital

maybe it doesn’t matter anymore

and we’re beyond all redemption at this point

maybe you just don’t care

and you’ll go and vote this november anyway

for this corporate shill or that

provided you have the right kind of i.d.

of course

i wouldn’t blame you

if you sat this nation out

taking my own look around this worn republic

and the jack-offs in charge

stalemating this place into dust

it’s easy to see why millions of us go home

to get lost in television

alcohol

our gadgets

and the pursuit of happy binge eating

until we pass out into unmade beds

waking up the next morning

to find out who this week’s villain will be

over coffee and pulp-free o.j.

a politician

a movie starlet

a celebrity chef

or some scared techy who worked for the nsa

this is the new american ideal

where kids kill out of boredom

where prisoners go on hunger strikes for a fair shake

and fast food workers take to the streets

asking to trade one-dollar hamburgers for a livable wage

while their corporate head honchos

sit in board rooms figuring out a way for these people

to balance their budgets on two jobs

and make more money out of their bottom line

where thirty-thousand people cheer

a drug cheat aging jock on his last legs

take a fastball to the neck

just to feel wholesome and self-righteous

about their own hollow lives

this is the fall and decline of the roman empire, you fools

the long-awaited sequel

coming at you in 2D, real 3D, and imax

the first scene of this thriller

a bankrupt detroit rambler passing through

wasteland main streets

with billboards for wal-mart and target

hanging in the dust-blown distance

offering everyday low prices on shit that no one needs

as this summer’s radio jam plays a bombastically

over spliced cute cat videos

looping over images of superman and iron man

fucking shit up

before super-sizing their asses all the way to the bank

where one-thousand dead

across a rapidly rising ocean

and our own tyranny at home

is a footnote

next to some bad actor dying

or whether or not a pop star cut her hair

and you thought the apocalypse would be nasty?