In the era of the idiot
who self-proclaims
as genius
truth writhes, suspect, on a greasy floor
sex parades as offense, forgetting
tendresse, hands held in mutual
adoration, eyes held in a shared
embrace. Nuclear annihilation once
banned, for the children’s sake,
threatens a new generation of innocents
while elders wring their hands, eyes
cast downward too afraid to speak
to lie down in the streets and say
no more — no more will we surface
lies or the bellicose gyrations
of a madman posing as world leader
impotent and petulant in his playpen
thinking the world his alone to destroy —
and don’t even get me started on
national parks, oil drilling off coastlines,
sacred sites desacralized and turned into commodity,
profit, profane younger brother of progress,
the world dying, even as it is being reborn,
and we sit around doing nothing
day after day, waiting for what?
In the era of the idiot who is the farthest
thing from genius, lacking imagination
to rule with just kindness, with a generous
heart or hands skilled enough to know
the difference between TV fame and reality,
the real world, the dying world, the poisoned
living breathing world, all other imaginations
are threatened, squashed beneath the single story*,
the lying truth that masquerades as bully,
the lackluster tin glare of glitter
beneath the deeply reflective solid gold of society
shining silently in its untracked path through a deafening snow.
*Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – “The Danger of a Single Story” – TED Talk 2009, Oxford
Living Poetically 