Saturday, June 22, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY FOUR

MUST I POINT OUT THE IRONY?

I read about what
those poor migrants
in the caravan are fleeing,
the gangs and bloodshed,
and an urge swept me
to go down to the library
and the bookstore,
and burn all the self help books,
all the ones that coddle
those of us with full bellies,
houses, jobs, two cars...

Who don't live with the daily fear
of rape and murder,
the ones that assuage
our soft existential concerns
about midlife crisis,
and the meaning
of our shallow lives.

We who will sit down
fat at thanksgiving tables
bitching about an invasion
of foreigners,
drunk on the juice of grapes
picked by their fingers,
and stuffing ourselves
with a turkey
they raised, caught,
beheaded and plucked.

Our hatred fanned
to a white hot flame
by masters of propaganda
whose books should also
be burned at the stake,
like the self righteous
and hypocritical trash
they are.

--Brian Rihlmann

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