What else can you expect
with a Hollywood fink, Reynold’s Aluminum
PR president
and The Republic-rats and the Demo-can’t-do-nothings
locked in a suicidal duel
to satiate the lusts of their vampire donors,
the contributors of PAC funds
and blood of the people
while only those who speak corporate tease
need apply at the networks and stations
and the consumer watchdogs got their paws stuck in the dyke
and all they could do was stand there as the levees gave way
and the credit came slurping through
like a he-a-cane sweeping all before it
leaving high rises on spits of sandbars
and malls in the middle of empty deserts
with Swiss bank accounts overflowing
and Hong Kong gold littered everywhere
and crack cocaine behind every box of dusty cereal in the corner store
and prostitutes importuning the streets and the personal ads
where everything is caused by mental illness and addictions
and studies pour out showing there’s really no problem
and it’s all been overestimated and if there is a problem
nothing can be done about it except to lower expectations
and realize this is just the way it is
and we aren’t getting any smarter
and that’s the truth.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.