QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD AFTER WATCHING CNN ALL AFTERNOON
People say we can change evils in the world
With enough legislation, money, awareness
Idealism and hope
Disease, inequality, poverty banished
TV commercials inform us so
With celebrities advocating the cause
Organizations they sponsor
Benefits, telethons, and dot.coms
We give a donation
Feel good about ourselves for a while
We buy tickets to fundraisers
Performed by rock stars
We have helped the needy
The starving in Africa, war-torn refugees,
Lands destroyed by tsunamis
Then, we revert to complaining:
The price of gasoline climbing
The rise in property taxes
The Nintendo DS under stocked
In the stores at Christmastime
We need so much take make us happy
To keep the market economy robust
To retain our jobs,
We forget the problems in the world
Stuck in traffic jams
Completing income tax forms
Shopping for toys during the holiday rush season
“We need more money”
The message of DH Lawrence’s story,
“Rocking Horse Winner”, will there be enough?
We use what money is at hand
To fund wars, surveillance, espionage,
We purchase SUV’s squandering
Dwindling fossil fuel reserves
We buy our kids videogames
Engrossed, at birthday parties,
They do not interact nor
Speak to one another
Faces glued to the screen,
Ears plugged with I Pods
Alienation we breed
“Fossil Fuels Forever,” a lingering delusion
Suffering is wrought by our beliefs
Poisoned water and air, carcinogenic agents,
Malfunctioning chromosomes,
A food supply contaminated
With E coli and Salmonella toxins
Recalled from grocery store shelves
Jesus, in his sermons, preached
“The poor you will always have”
The tenets of Buddha “all life is suffering”
Did they better understand our limitations?
Our dark side - avarice, vanity, narcissistic need,
Immediacy, things that we covet above all else
Flaws begetting poverty, inequality,
Since civilization began
Luxury and comfort pursued
Dominating human desire
Equity in class, worldly goods,
The Soviet’s version of Marx
Produced repression of civil rights,
The citizens of Eastern Europe
Decided they wanted more than
Standing on bread lines
Ex-hippies and radicals pine
A resurgence of the 60’s again
Then, the populace wielded much power
To influence social change
Was it a fluke of demographics?
The population of Baby Boomers so great
Are liberal causes even possible once more?
Did too much cynicism, apathy, loss of hope,
Penetrate after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated
Yet, there have been movements
Moments again, “Feed the World” of Live Aid,
“End Extreme Poverty” – the slogan of the G8 concert,
We view Pink Floyd reunited performing “Money”,
We cheer wildly
Go home gratified
Make a pledge
Feel assured: we have done a good thing
The next day, we watch CNN
The 24-hour news media
Tribulation forced upon us
The world careening
Violently, blindly, helplessly,
The stalemate of the war in Iraq
School shootings
Tribal genocide in Africa
We feel overwhelmed
Can we come to the realization
As humanity together
Beyond racial divides
We will continue to fight
Whose religion is more devout
Weaponry, politics, genocide
To battle the “enemy”
Sometimes, it feels like Rome reborn
The cruelty of the Middle Ages
Can our humanity evolve as our
Anatomy and technology has done through the ages
Archaelogists postulate
In the beginning, tribes lived in concord
With the seasons, there was no hierarchy,
The tribe worked for the greater good,
Yet, no one knows for sure
How their way of life really was
Can we live in a pillared house
With central air conditioning and still feel
Disposed to be humane
Or do we need to live in caves
Compelled by the success of the hunt
To live peaceably again