2020 Hindsight

what have we learned  from
what we have lived here
land of opportunity lacking
for much unity we
travel in circles victims of
uncertainty or the opposite
often wasting energy, angry
looking for others to blame
driving each other insane
two wings of our one entity
one-hundred years ago we
suffered together so and
soon forgot the pain until
it returned again then bread
lines as far as eyes could
see and the long lost memory
typhoid mary contact tracing
leaders with empathy and
not much attention to the
source of all this pain, sorrow
death and dissolution not to
forget all the confusion.

look over here where the
forests once sheltered so
many creatures now helter
skeltered captured and eaten
sold in cages or tortured and
beaten by humans so
hungry for profit they’ve
forgotten the comfort of just
living in Nature instead of
their pocket and then get
on guard when we reveal it
or mock it, behavior once scorned
in old tomes and court edicts
now worshipped above all else
another contagion that might not
kill you but could ruin creation
or love and harmony with any given
relation as we witness the end of
countless other lives and existence
of species we are so sadly mistaken
while watching the news, the
plague on our place the chance
of a cure or the latest sensation
which means nothing or worse for
expiring species in diminishing
locations our machines grind down
into toxic dust drawn out by
building hot winds into recorded
nightmares of complete devastation.

how much distance have we put
between us and this planet, enough
to make sure whoever’s in charge
thinking they ran it were making it
worse through selfish deceit transparent
theatrics folding in stupid with putrid
showmanship apprentice to his own
devolution and posing, always posing
sitting for portraits never hung though
hanging may be too good for some
culling the herd you may have heard
illness self-inflicted and predicted
unspoken requests he please just
get sick and die, we won’t cry.

what about those who silent
stood by or bought in with
the sin of hatred exclusion the
ugly fusion muddled illusion
the speeches of mammon more
important than life itself  life
once precious as your child
and the wild, the wonder even
the thunder or a sunset or rising
from memory or the moment

where did you just put your
hand in what sequence did
it land near that handle or the
lever and how did the weather
become such a marker outside
that window first lighter then
darker out there where it is
moving about unseen stealth
feeding on everyone’s health
just waiting for your reopening
just groping for your lungs and
wagging tongues of freedom
locking and loading and corroding
the steely look in your eyes until
your loved one dies and you follow
suits empty of souls taking endless
tolls on your future your dreams
yelling won’t help you be more of
a man reacting to something you
don’t understand like the child
you once were still unsure you
react you contract the virus not
guileless and stronger than you.

the price of life what is it how much
the cost of a casket a chair a crutch
is the venting preventing prevention
and such grasping we’re asking
for a certain degree of detention
for those we are loath to mention
for their economic pretensions
when time comes unwound day
after day after week when we seek
the usual it goes south to confusional
which moon is it what happened on
what day would you say it is the
worst pandemic in generations or
one hundred years or recorded
history of misery and purposeful
injury original sin and slavery now
kneeling on necks the law on the street
among wrecks burning with anger
short on regrets the monuments
fall and y’all get defensive or is it
ostensive locking and loading
constantly goading as the ground
beneath you slips away what do
you say unmasked in the fray
freedom to get sick and die but
not to drag us along that’s wrong
ok?

wrong like that song wrong like
the strong survive about being alive
and all that jive will not survive


imagined blessings no good to crown
no brotherhood in that sound look
around you we surround you we
will take you back but don’t react
like some stranger a rearranger of
honesty you are only one third of
the land that you love nothing from
above will change that it’s a fact
it’s the end of your act time to
go back body politic can’t breathe
or breathes too much as such it
is what it is slips from their clutch

an election correction approaches
insurrection may spread the infection
mindless rejection courting hypocrisy
democracy lies with kleptocracy
decency fades amid fascist charades
yet the ballot a mallet bang out some
flaws the avoiding of laws their
sorry lost cause lost again amid plots
amid lots of ugly days turn to weeks
to months our interesting times await
the virus now in the people's house
finds those who deny and lie who
standby over three hundred thousand die
And growing not slowing

but then we elect maybe make it correct
to deselect to disinfect the body politic
the living planet and those upon it
eject the lunatic with simple arithmetic
though he and his seek sideways we
counting days of fear to a new year
ugly pardons missing gardens,
darkening with threatened marshaling to
the end of his reign of pain when it
all felt so insane.

                                 - d.o.  2020