Apocalypse 2022: Statements without Segues
Pundits identify “unique” chaos: not a warzone, not Afghanistan, not Vietnam.
Same cacophony I wasn’t supposed to hear, the child of a different revolution.
History redux, hard deadline exit. Each generation fails in on itself.
Exceptional children, seen and not heard, neither ask nor tell;
give rise to new voiceless voices.
The Gifted Superlatives make the same/different mistakes.
“Unprecedented:” this year’s platitude, the “new normal” of Alexander Haig-isms;
Dan Quayle-spelling, potato, “potatoe;” Oliver North fall-people scapegoats.
Post pandemic millennials vibrate with intergenerational trauma: past sins passed along.
Pain exudes from passion without compassion,
inheritance of present perfect woes, incessant insistence to get it right,
this time. The earth was dying before we broke it.
Screams don’t heal ozone holes;
shade thrown can’t stitch society’s gasping seams.
Aphorisms not different enough to reach escape velocity.
I listen to questions you ask/implore to be heard.
You insist I can’t understand, so I stop.
I watch as your reality dawns, with neither acknowledgment nor reparations.
The plight of next gen justice, hand wringer-bloodshed:
not different than Lady Macbeth, human Stains you tried/could not caste out.
Another end of days-revelation, in a life cycle of endless days.
Shari Berk
Hickory NC
