Like I could really do something

“Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” – John F. Kennedy

What are the average citizen’s chances of curbing our bloated & forever-increasing dEfense budget?

I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I can do to unsnarl this donor lobbyist induced legislative gridlock

What can I do about BigAg mono-cropping, water waste & insecticide, fertilizer & antibiotic abuse?

Seems like a loud majority of us take a real pride in our large-scale return to illiteracy and ignorance

What could I say that would enlighten them as to the absurdity of using hulking trucks as family cars?

How might the little guy voice a sane objection to the corpro-sales media guilt blitz they call $XMAS?

I’m guessing there’s no real way to focus on long-term sustainability instead of quarterly GDP figures

There never will be any genuine discussion regarding our own excessive numbers choking the planet

It’s pretty obvious that both sides have framed the CO₂ debate such that prevention is not an option

Looks like religion will always be used to control the poor, milk the rich & sugarcoat political wars

How can I preserve habitat for disappearing species driven away by poor & hungry 3^rd World farmers?

I can’t think of any way to get giant insurers to compete to provide healthcare to the poor or the sick

No way can I stop polluting frackers from profitably exporting our sound bite Energy Independence

The free market cannot help but demand more of a tasty fish until higher prices drive it to extinction

Like I could really do something that would help stop the lovely monarch butterfly from disappearing

I guess the best we can do is put up signs warning our kids to stay away from polluted lakes & rivers

How can I change a system Blacks say has allowed us unconscious prejudice against them for 300 yrs?

Why dispute terrorist claims to the One True God given our own comically-archaic, franchised faiths?

I’ll never get any of them off the couch in front the big screen to learn some vital new job skills

Without socialism, how can we let others besides developers, drillers & miners determine our future?

Their empty addiction to corporate sport wont be affected by some limp whining by impotent vegans

Ignorant, lower middle-class whites will always back Conservatives who openly out them as moochers

You can’t convince them that Obamacare isn’t some unconstitutional, socialist government takeover

Just try and reason with gun-toting ATV drivers hellbent on freedom-riding all over their public lands

Don’t bother asking why they don’t plan for, or even talk about, our looming global water shortage

And what do you think your letters do compared to anonymous multi-million dollar corpro donations?

Obesity is a disability, not the failure of people to learn what to eat or to how get off their backsides

Obviously, we must be those who provide Middle East solutions and not their corrupt desert regimes

It’ll always be easier to campaign with anonymous innuendos & half truths than to honestly debate

I must accept that abortion, gay rights & women’s needs really are society’s truly important issues

All of my recycling, hybrid-driving & locavoring won’t ever amount to a single coal-fired power plant

We will remain an entitled, exceptionist people whose leaders can demand that ‘God Bless America!’

I can never even help start to rebuild broken electric, gas, water, roads, bridges, dams & internet

It must be proper to microscopically examine social programs but to blankcheck all arms spending

There’s no way to rid ourselves of this destructive plague of lifelong puppet, professional politicians

Yes, I fear each & every regelation directly limits our personal freedom & leads to a socialist decay

From Beneath The Surface

Did not have the time to say it all

So I learned I must stay real small

Just tried to make sense of what I knew

In the end I saw just how foolish it all grew

Could not stay to help their grieving

Flies commenced to buzz as I was leaving

Guess I was lost this whole damn way

No wonder I never planned out where I’d lay

Laid out looking up at all them stars

Their blue was cold and that black was far

Felt tiny snowflakes dancing upon my nose

dreams touched my heart while I dozed

Came across those things that you uncovered

Watched sand blow over what I discovered

Saw the river’s ancient canyon stage

As I divided my years by this world’s age

Learned to pause yet I never stopped

Thought I could listen while I hopped

Saw speckled horses and an old log fence

Finally got used to things not making sense

The pieces you found did not quite match up with mine

It merely seemed we all pursued different lines

Stayed a while where the dust was clean

Til they sped by in new and shiny, closed machines

Began to howl to spread my sad news

Never did gamble, but still learned to lose

I might have come from any gypsy stock

Carved out our initials upon that rock

Turned it all quite upside down on purpose

Things looked blurry from beneath the surface

Looked for myself on snowy mountains

Most found my anger quite astounding

Scuffled savagely over smallest scraps

Licked my wounds between hungry naps

Lost the race I never knew began

My hair grew too wild and my face too thin

Lay drugged and watched my fluids fill their tubes

Ran all day, back when my joints were lubed

Lost all those memories I had finally gathered

Thought I got soaked but was merely spattered

Could not stay quiet as we all stood still

Made things harder thanks to my foolish will

Felt the grace in those huge blue swells

Helped myself and left my kids the bill

Knew in my gut that it all must end

Had neither time to help nor money to lend

At last I grew just a little thankful

Finally realized I owed this monstrous toll

Had a blurry vision of me off in peace and light

Began to wake up sweaty in the dark of night

Tried hard to change it all for good

Everything hurt when I finally understood

For a while it seemed things might just improve

Then came the morning my legs would not move

Crushed fine objects in darkness stumbling

Things got broke whenever I started fumbling

Studied empty scenes of starkest devastation

Heard sisters whispering over my evisceration

Overheard the voice of their gods almighty

Grew sad to realize they did not speak to me

Ruined many fine things in my short time

Under the patient trees I relived my prime

Always spiced up my own plain food

Came across as chiseled out just a bit too crude

Took a hard fall and badly twisted a firm belief

She thought me wise but I merely sought relief

It grew too smoky to recover any left-behinds

Questioned their ways and was treated less than kind

Never took warm comfort from friends or family

But clutched at them all as I slowly slipped away

Cast widely for some sanity with a narrow beam of reason

Got mixed up by faith and lost my way amid broken dreams

Devolution

- Descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state

Today there’s something to those pictures that makes me already look old & faded, even way back then

Always keeping so very busy engendered in me a background sense of comforting permanency

I ran the suburbs like a vast personal savanna and then crouched in front of TV like some smoky fire

Striped cat purred on top that old wool blanket on my tired lap during a tiny fractal eddy of forever

In the morning the world seemed born again until I rejoined the angry herd, in the smog, once again

The dew, though tainted with our mistakes, still made things look very fresh and wondrously clean

My takeout beliefs had grown cold and stale just when I needed their nourishment the most

I was unconsciously framing an apology even as I lashed out in blind rage for the 9 millionth time

Swirling into a hungover consciousness, I vowed one more time that it would never happen again

I grew confused as to what year we went where on which, long-anticipated 3 day holiday weekend

I kissed her again for the first time on that golden October afternoon, knowing she was gone forever

Given our circumstances, I found my almost daily depression normal, and my rare happiness a mystery

It wasn’t until long afterward that I realized how late it had already grown, even so long ago

Slowly I convinced myself I had lost my way, though really I never had a clue as to where I was headed

As my youthful anger slowly aged to a foolish bitterness, I still hoped to distill a few drops of wisdom

Even as we made our eternal vows we both knew that simple time alone would unthinkingly undo them

My seeming hardened indifference sprang simply from my being overwhelmed by insoluble issues

My safe habits had worn a familiar groove in a very small part of an infinity of frightening possibilities

I studied myself as I slowly devolved back into that dimensionless point from which I had no memories

I saw the four short seasons of my life morphing to an endless and dreamless, dark winter’s night sleep