It's So Over Now

A proudly-ignorant dystopia

 There’s still smoke everywhere but most of the really big fires are almost out

We’re seeing isolated pockets of resistance but nothing that is organized

The major roads are all empty and impassible due to all the abandoned cars

Semi trailers stand jack-knifed and gutted oozing discarded packaging materials

Groups of vigilantes search out the minorities they have always deemed evil and guilty

Dirty children play happily, unaware of their ragged dress and skin diseases

The once-fat all share the same final diet and, dear friends, it always works

None of the women seem quite so beautiful, stripped of makeup, jewelry & clean clothes

There’s plenty of paper but nobody bothers writing much but simple messages

Luckily, we’ve still got a lot of ammunition left, what with all the enemies that surround us

Nothing’s growing since the farmers fled in front of us and we ate up all their seed

Those Black Helicopters do still fly by real low right over us every once in a while

It’s over now and we all know the Good Old Days are not even coming back

We camp each night in a different abandoned SUV that will never run again

I killed a man over an unopened can of beans that some child had dug up

We shoot every off-color on sight, take their stuff and leave them strung up as examples

Grandpaw got drunk and left behind and the feral dogs just tore him apart

We keep moving south with the fall but it’s getting darker and colder even faster

Found a Witness Group dead in their circle all cleaned up and dressed real nice

It’s much better now that all the corpses have decayed about enough to stop their stinking

Now the rain is dirty and it coats everything in a somber, itchy gray

We killed a skinny, lost cow last month so we stopped and feasted for a week

I’m on the lookout for some new shoes and Jimmy needs a sweater

Took quite a while to get used to things being so damn quiet all the time

We surrounded a locked compound and smoked out some corporate pretenders

Heard all the starving survivalists just sniping at each other out there in the woods

Showed the kids some books but knew they would never learn to read

It’s over now and pretty soon won’t none of us care to even know no better

Sense Of Impending Doom

There’s this vise-like tightness growing in my chest when all I do is look around

Twilight’s lengthening shadows bring on a strong sense of my own impending doom

Maybe it’s the gray skies that just cant seem to brighten up all the mud and trash

Or it could be the endless pronouncements of wondrous new economic recovery initiatives

Then there’s this feeling like everybody’s running and I just can’t quite keep up

Seems like simply busting out in tears is appropriate at least once or twice a week

Even though my job seems pretty safe for now, the next round of layoffs still looms overhead

Once or twice a month it seems I wake up in the dark, drenched in a cold sweat

Doctor says that these new meds may take a while to reach their full effect

I surely hope so cause it feels like a lot of things are tightening up all around me

Maybe it’s cause I’m too old to hire, too young to retire and we’re still so far in debt

I just cant seem to get any air as I lay here in bed gasping like some tiny drowning fish

Feels like I’ve been squeezed into a corner that only leads to blind dead-ends

My savior’s not been as effective so I’m trying to turn up the power of prayer a notch

This awful burning that’s gnawing at my stomach speaks volumes, without a single word

Smog-darkened skies make sitting in endless lines of traffic just seem foolish and quite futile

Wise corporate leaders laying off thousands and defaulting on benefits fit neatly into my despair

Feels like the end of the carefree world that they advertised and helped us to finance

Can’t tell if that smell of fear is coming from the dark mall or the local feed lot

Just don’t have any matching ties that don’t cut off the circulation to my brain

There’s a numbness that’s spreading from my thoughts on out to my extremities

I’ve got this tingling sensation and my left arm feels as if it’s fast asleep

They say I’m just innocent detritus from the vast new global economies of scale

But there’s no way to avoid the simple conclusion that this just cannot continue

My ankles are swollen and my eyes are puffy and it’s really hard to get upstairs

A few drinks don’t bring the satisfaction that they always did, not so very long ago

I’m not seeing all the colors anymore or else everything is black or dirty gray

Feels like something quite sinister is flowing in silently from all sides at once

I’m subtly twisting everything I see to support these feelings of inevitable calamity

The dirty, littered streets all whisper to me of some ghastly approaching plague

Haunted eyes stare back at me from deep within the dark sockets of my own haggard face

Seems like the crows wait with ever more raucous impatience on something I do not see

Dirty Twilight Of A Faux Empire

Dancing in the fleeting twilight of an immature but decaying empire

Struggling in vain to catch a glint of the weak light in a dreary winter

Sighing as yet another slow-moving gray rainstorm settles in upon us

Ignored in the company of local strangers at their drinking and talking

Praying before a solitary place, set with unknown food

Mumbling, with no one around, after another long, hot, dirty day of work

Shuffling in another quiet line of disappointing hand-outs

Laying in a darkened room in yet another empty town

Singing unknown songs amidst a most unnaturally-quiet twilight

Drifting silently on through those many deserted settlements

Hiding among weedy croplands which will not see a harvest once again this year

Floating away above the frenzied dancers moving to the beat of the plague

Borne straight to ecstasy by their most fatal of attractions

Repelled by the sight of the old ones forced to toil in vain

Tearful as I watch all their dirty children, still at play

Grubbing in the littered twilight of a quick and dirty empire

Foraging in strange lands after being driven on once again

Awakening to early darkness not knowing where we’ve been

Held up once more by another broken wheel somewhere up ahead

Hardened by adversity yet hollowed out by our suffering

Nursed back once again merely to return to another’s battle

Scuffling over discards even before we know that they are broken

Eating lost, emaciated domestic animals because we have no food

Trying to sleep cold beneath a damaged and leaking roof

Holding on to some things only because, at one time, they held great value

Crouching in the aftermath of a shallow empire, without a plan

Hiding out for far too long in these dark places, so not fit to live

Staring at the broken glass kicked out during our crumbling downward spiral

Doubling down once again for the hungry kids still back at home

Skipping with those dirty fairies thru blockaded streets, past burned out buildings

Shuffling on with nagging, untreated injuries and worn-out, duct-taped shoes

Praying to a silent god for mercy from this mystery he keeps forcing us to see

Footsteps fading thru the emptying shadows of our once-imagined empire

Feeling Good, Doing Badly

You’ll be laid off when you’re about 50 and your services won’t ever be needed again

On the other hand they’ve pushed back your full retirement age until at least the age of 70

We’ve developed nearly magical cures for all the illnesses that will soon plague you

Unfortunately, they’ll be far beyond all your government benefits and meager savings put together

You’re grounded by the wondrous set of private dialogs you’ve shared with your personal savior

But you pack with 3000 other prairie dogs in a Wal*Mart style mega-church to worship him

She walks dogs at the Humane Society and donates to groups with cute puppy calendars

You’ll find her serving guests tender veal that can never even stand up inside their tiny pens

Under great duress they righteously accorded several species their so-called protection

Meanwhile, the seas were strip-mined of all life and filled with microscopic plastic

I reflect upon my efforts at recycling with a certain greenish sense of satisfaction

My used paper heads off to China to be used to package all the imports we don’t make here anymore

We provided temporary jobs for honest loggers harvesting the last of those valuable big trees

But now there’s no more logs to ship and tourists don’t visit to gawk at trees and spend their money

You borrowed millions and started carving a remote area into a toney second home resort

Your little friends pulled the plug on your leveraged scheme, so you just walked away

I am searching for the miraculous and straining with every fiber for cosmic understanding

I’ve got juicy soft porn sites bookmarked that I visit with a monk-like regularity

They demanded our personal responsibility regarding health care as well as pensions

On the other hand they were bailed out by crooked cronies with no strings attached at all

We could step in and lower your interest rate and we could even guarantee your loan

But with your no-down and equity re-financing you’re still way too far underwater for you to bother

Things are looking so much better for us now than earlier in this bloody financial quagmire

Yet, no one will ever be held responsible for the crimes and sins that got us there to start with

You rage against the fact that you only earn 80% of your male colleagues takings

But they’re working 10% overtime & holding the door as you leave early again, for your lame kids

At last you’re free to enjoy all the wondrous things that you’ve always dreamed of

Your eyes are bad, your back is sore, your wind is gone and you never hatched a nestegg

Smart consumers have at last stopped credit spending and some have even begun to try and save

Alas, such wise household spending attitudes cause stocks to fall and even more jobs to disappear

Honest citizens have been freed from oppressively high fuel prices once again

Just in time to fuel another surge in purchases of gas-guzzling SUVs & obese, road-hogging pickups

The car dealers, real estate agents, cruise lines, and hip restauranteurs were mired in recession

And they say consumer spending always solves our economic crises and certainly never causes them

The vacuous, self-serving geniuses of Wall Street are getting flak over giant bonuses again this year

On the other hand they’re not going to jail cause they’ve convinced us we still can’t do without them

Dirty Fire

When we arrived on scene the dump still burned, but there were not too many flames

Beneath its thin layer of sanitary dirt, methane was formed and had ignited

Gashed mattresses, horribly soaked couches, sunken birdcages and rancid fish smoldered

I knew I had been finally proved a sinner, finding myself in this disgusting hell

Bleach and paint thinner, used oil and sour milk, sullied rain and breaded cat poop

Beheaded dolls, twisted pink T-shirts, broken chicken bones and rotting garden hoses

Rancid vegetables and jagged metal and all kinds of rejected plastic, everywhere

Wet brown advertising material in every orientation crushed by broken bike wheels

The bronzish smoke of hell itself filled eyes and lungs as mice and bugs scuttled off

Of course the roar of crushers and bulldozers drowns out all normal communication

Skeletal swingset frames groan terribly as they are painfully twisted aside

Brake fluid coated propane cylinders bob ominously to the slimy brown surface

Avalanche and landslide dangers keep us on toes layered deep in pungent slime

Our water leaches out a myriad of chemicals as it begins to flow downhill

Old-timers laugh and inhale the smoke and doubt a liquid plume can reach the river

Half-eaten waffles coated in dirty tissue paper cover a crumpled dress raped by a toothy 2x4

The unknown liquids of our innocent household trash leach into a vile HazMat stew

Blowed-out tires and old chimney bricks, concrete rocks and dirty washing machines

Sharp metal shelving shards contaminated with that muddy paste spear at the unwary

Spattered business printouts anchored by soupcans unfold under shady, torn-up car seats

Here and there twisted metal smokes and burns even at the cool ground level

Heat and CO2 rise from the mattress-like surface we walk upon to do our good work

Rotten rope from a hammock lies twisted into the undoable knots by the hand of God

Discarded carpet partially unrolled leads one to somewhere, off beneath the rubble

Over there an infirm pet has been committed without undue ceremony

Box springs at odd angles trap feet and toss us face first toward the sludge

Tarred fast food wrappers decorate discarded furniture like they ate and ran

However, we all remain quite complacent cause this landfill fire’s been burning for many years