Monday . . . Mid-Day Free Stuff

When 24 Hour News Gets a Bit Much

Insular hardhat, you are the gift that
everyone has forgotten. Blinders on
a mule can’t make the beast move.
Frozen in the breaking light, no one

wants visibility. We just want to scratch
a shallow space in the hardness, to remember
the embrace only ignorance allows.
Cameras and satellites loop us in webs,

taunt us and leave us sullen as
pick-pocketed travelers who have missed
the last train. Who knew a village
obliterated could drop stones in

our morning cereal? Gratitude
for the random twitch that’s left us
nervous but unharmed. Hold this prayer
like tarnished alms: Let us forge

deeper into complacency, unmarred
by anything beyond the flashpoint
that stabs from the flat screen source
of thorns tangled in empathy’s cloak.

Never resolve to act, for only the few
are able to park the SUV and walk
down that crumbling cave’s shadow.