Some Richly-Deserved Side-Effects

“Deserved: Highly merited and just” – Oxford English Dictionary

We’ve always cheered on attention-obsessed, big-lie pushing sociopaths instead of real leaders

Thus, we have earned the right to enjoy repression, poverty & war under their vanity-driven regimes

We demanded ever-increasing dEfense budgets as we patriotically slashed education & entitlements

Guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that some 71% of those aged 17-35 fail military admission tests

Coal marketeers assured us mountain top removal, mercury & CO2 emissions were safe for families

So ADHD kids cough as we adjust thermostats to T-shirt comfort in record heat, under polluted skies

They promised us the better jobs of tomorrow and lots of savings when they sent our jobs overseas

But, instead now they offshore both engineering and design just to keep their huge bonuses flowing

Big Oil said fracking would patriotically yield us clean Energy Independence from greedy arab sheiks

Really, they’re sticking us with no alternatives and the cleanup exporting that Energy Independence

You always sarcastically dismissed their socialist nannying over smoking, obesity and lack of exercise

OK, but diabetes got your foot, just breathing is hard and your heart is simply shot-Happy Ever After!

You proudly made damn sure they never passed any form of gun control WhatSoEver - Gotnam it!

But they watch your every move & know all about your guns, when you use them & how to take them

Yes, you’ve stockpiled guns & ammo against gov’t drones and those black UN helicopters in the night

But I’ll bet you’d just wind up shooting each other over food scraps from your faux-military pickups

You spent thousands of hours at boring jobs ‘just can’t waiting for’ that next big 3 day weekend

But you can’t remember which from when and somehow most of the selfies got lost on your phone

You knew better than to waste precious tax$ on that, whatever it was, national infrastructure scam

So it’s cool that the water’s bad, the roads are worn out, the grid is broken and the internet is slow

You scornfully reject that dam Obamacare – Yup, to hell with them moochers and gov’t death panels!

But you did wind up paying a parasite lawyer to guide you thru your healthcare-induced bankruptcy

You spent thousands playing the fool just to be sure your precious children would be your friends

Apparently it worked cause now it looks like they’re back home to stay: 30ish, jobless & in debt

With all the cool stuff you really needed, you never even saved enough for one family emergency

Then, your unexpected forced early retirement at 55 left you deep in debt, depressed and unhealthy

Corporate scientists introduced many time & money-saving chemicals they never had to safety test

Now all our kids are lazy, autistic, sickly slow learners and we’re all obese & pre-cancerous

It was easy to ascribe the terrible sufferings of others to your omnipotent God’s mysterious ways

Feels different now that you’re weak & old, the wife’s demented and your kids only call for money

You always said you’d never want to live to be 60 and those old people had a for-real duty to pass

Turns out that 80 is the new 60 since every new expensive medical trick is paid for by your Medicare

You derisively rejected their calls to recycle and smirkingly dumped your household toxics as well

If your dumbdowned heaven existed, you’d see grandkids cursing you as they mine your filthy legacy

You studied only pointless sports stats, twisted political soundbites and smarmy blockbuster lines

Got any hipster clichés now as you lay, tubes going in and out, so very still & pale-On your deathbed?

Retaining The Balance

Death cannot ever even visit where there is no life at all to harvest

The brightness of our greatest success cannot breach the darkness of their biggest failure

Even in a land where none are beautiful, everyone shall, nonetheless, always know the fairest

Where all are morbidly obese, the merely overweight will be deemed to be quite thin

Our proudest victory must imply a loss as powerfully agonizing for some opponent somewhere

We cannot be any further uplifted than someone, somewhere else, has been debased

If I can love her with all my heart, so too, can you hate me with all your soul

If there existed no quiet humility, neither would we witness any excess pride

The deeper that my laughter is, the more rending could be anothers’ tears

Without knowing any but media sorrow, how much real joy do we actually feel?

After such terrible sickness, the healed appreciate at last the wondrous gift of a long recovery

If most are blind, those who see even blurry shapes are deemed to be great visionaries

Given that war is part of human nature, surely our peace must always be riddled with strife

Given time & repetition, our Great Leader’s biggest lies always morph into a working truth

I would not recognize the feelings of others had I not been raised by those who could actually care

Even the sweetest water cannot satisfy us in the slightest beyond the degree of our thirst

They who love the rain the most must have been here through the entire drought

None of us will be able to effectively call out the evil if others cannot recognize the good

To appreciate such a Spring as this, you really must have endured the darkness of last Winter

Each instant of any and all creation has ensured one more absolutely certain death

Small as we all are, we must still view some among us as real giants

Little satisfaction comes without experiencing some long held desire

If all we had ever heard was music, what would we think of all this piercing noise?

Accustomed to a life in total darkness, we could but only fear the appearance of this golden sun

None could recognize an old thing if they had never seen something new

One knows not what it really means to take, if they haven’t been taken from

A man does not know when he hurts someone if he has grown unable to feel any pain himself

I did not know how badly I had always felt, until finally, I grew just a little better

Our perspective would certainly differ were we not His chosen people, fruitfully taking dominion

Alas, a different future cannot be crafted given a thoughtless choice to ignore the past