Eulogy for the Common Good

weather reports depict the next hours,

                           or days

climate forecasts look through a

                                longer lens..

both fail to measure and report

                  the erosion of conscience

the depletion of the natural resource,

                                the common good

as if to hold it up is to honour

                               some communist

ideology

while the dictates of fashion moguls, and the

              exclusive lists of the ‘best’ parties

and the Forbes list of billionaires

                    all exhibit a cultish reverence for

idolatry

               of the ‘big’ names for their clones

of their disdain for the voiceless

                      of the contempt for the imprisoned

many of whom merit amnesty

                                     and rehab…not incarceration..

grace and forgiveness, once cornerstones of

                          public morality, and authentic

justice

                        have been exterminated with the

hundreds of species of flora, fauna and fish

                            in a garbage flooded ecosystem

married to a narcissistic individualism

                          and then

a story of an eleven-year-old’s

lemon-aid stand fundraising for a good cause

                   generates a feel-good news story

like a Zoloft for the masses

                 and an amnesty for our

guilt and our

                          apathy

                                     and our detachment

We are the hollow men T.S. Eliot prophesied

                                             and we stuff our heads

with the straw of illusion

                                        and fame

                                                       and money

Oxford choses “post-truth” as the new word for 2016..

                                        has shame too been exterminated

or merely highly endangered?