The New Normal

 

 

The fraying of nerves

as democracy crumbles--

“The new normal.” “Get used to it.”

Work til you’re 85, chained and indexed,

Minimal wages.

 

Get used to schools that teach nothing

but how to stand in line.

Get used to poison rivers

Smelling like licorice.

Get used to city hall

abandoning neighborhoods

to build stadiums 

Roman circuses. No bread involved. 

Get used to Daddy Mega Warbucks

sucking in tax dollars,

exhaling fire: bombs and drones;

Get used to Big Brother

perching on your computer

echoing in your cell phone

loitering at the post office

staring wide-eyed into your bank vault

 

Get used to super size crabgrass,

germs thriving on antibiotics

Months of flu wracking your lungs.

Get used to answering the voices of machines.

Real music would make you

feel your feelings. Numb is normal. 

Feel nothing. Don’t protest.

Get used to quarrels set by politicians,

their hands in all our pockets.

 

Get used to billionaires

shooting for the stars

trying to exit their earthly mess.

If the 2032 meteor hits

they bank on escape. Maybe their rocket

will turn another way

--straight for the sun,and leave us here 

Trying to not be like them.   

God help us.                  

--B. McKeown