by George Salamon
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| Darkness & Light Art Print by Zeke Tucker |
"Pessimism is a conscious filter which disarms ideologues and frees us to act in a practical manner.” —John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion
The air all around our leader echoes with shouts,
His Tweets can not put the tiles that fell off the
Roof of his political temple back up, the storm of
Coronavirus has come and its furious waves grow
Denser, it bursts through masks and measurements
As it rages and more than 142,000 lives have gone down.
Our leader is concerned only with the quadrennial
Cockfight staged for us as Democracy while too many
Among us have lost touch with first things,as bands of
Rebels, marginalized and mocked, try to restore it,
In their own fashion, forcing us to see the state of our
Union from the short view, pitch in, waiting for the
Long view to stumble and stagger close enough to
Lead us to the light out of the darkness we chose.
George Salamon took to pessimism when he was a refugee kid in Switzerland during World War Two and the Holocaust, but he has not let it sour into cynicism. He lives and writes in St. Louis, MO, and most recently has contributed to The Asses of Parnassus, One Sentence Poems and TheNewVerse.News.