Misery Sprouting

Atlas cannot shrug…

For, beneath shreds of flapping plastic tarp
red ones
yellow
mud-caked
estrangement from society struggles
are seedlings all.

Victims grow victims
knowing long chains of iron or thorn
can never bind tight
without the first link locking.

Bias neutral saplings become vagrants
as factory buildings despair
merchant shops close up
anger lashes out
anger lashes in
crumbling brick
rusting metal
time in transit.

Like our feathered and scaled friends
survival choices are fraught with peril
corridors change reality from rock to sand
inviting spore and weed
unknown terrains gather
both innocence and guilt alike.

Humanity's desperation
like congregating tumbleweed
huddle
wait
while choices made-for some

are made-by continued forging

this precarious journey.

Some collapse behind
like developing seeds choked of tears
finding solace behind life's construction sheds
among plow blades and orange safety cones
random piles without order
without care.

Covetous of freedom
idleness crowds wildflowers and dust
gasping lifeless air beside spools of power cables
hiding among barbed wire left pointless
utility boxes corroding
tangled strangulation
becoming one with the great unraveling
progression's drought
depression's storm.

At night…

Lifeless used car lots
become yesterday's fantasy movies
once entertainment of smiles
now but vinyl flags without wind
faded color
becoming black and white
with nary a glint from lights gone dead.

Down the shadowed road
pick-up trucks and Harleys
once sparkling of Simonize pride
now fill dirt lots of roadside rest
meadowed among cattails and fledgling nests
anxious famine claiming orphan lands.

Future’s people-less paradigm…

Such is misery sprouting.