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