America 2051

[The Madcap]

written in 2003, but even more applicable now

The haze hangs thick, gray pallid stench of death.
Clouds of confusion filter through the minds of the children…
Children of thirty, maybe forty-five
With crippled limbs, crippled minds…
As we forgot how to read, ourselves,
Feed ourselves,
Need ourselves.
Starvation lingers among the corpses of America,
America the hungry,
America the starving,
America the dying.
As the new millennium is just beginning,
The nation of prosperity is ending
Since we forgot how to pray
How to say, "I love you,"
How to say, "I'm sorry,"
How to say, "You're important to me."

Instead they just enslaved us,
Pushing harder and harder
No rewards…only production,
No time…only overtime…
As the National Company Store revived its ugly head again.
Brand names
Branded workers
Stamped from the mold of predetermined fate.
No resistance
No persistence
Only permission of use, abuse, misuse
In the great starving cesspool of America.
Just another state in the Unified World
"Just another plate of cold beans…please."
Feed me.
Need me.
Read me…

My eyes cry tears of suffering years…
No conquests of castles,
No building of pyramids,
No jungles to explore,
No crusades of glory,
No nations to found,
No empires to build…
Only busyness
Only mundane…
MEDIOCRITY.

The average have forgotten how to care for themselves
The elite ones don't care one bit.
But now their food is gone too.
They roam the streets in a glass-eyed glaze,
Of walking skeletons, men of bones.
Millions and millions line the streets.
Abandoned shells of rusted old cars
Long ago given up for dead,
The homes of street children, orphans alone.
No parents to watch them.
Childhood…no play…no children,
Feeding on cats in the streets
Festering sores
Festering America.
Rumor runs rampant, conspiracy lives.
"Kill all the killers…We'll save our America!"
Enslave, entertain, we'll say it's O.K!
Don't fix it, ignore it, we'll always be O.K.
In our dying America.

[LoisB]

1. Indeed.