Oh, friends, here we are teetering at an edge we did not expect to find.
Neighborhoods but empty ruins...was it foretold? Were we so blind?
Expensive suits of executives hanging silent in foreclosed closets.
The American dream found...but like fools, we've suddenly lost it.

Incomes spent in gasoline tanks...fumes more valuable than gold.
Unemployment....stocks failing...blood's a commodity to now be sold.
Orange stickers on empty windows and tall grass where neighbors were.
Food pantries with waiting lines...oh, how the sure has become unsure.

Bailout after bailout for those who can afford those private planes.
Companies, once failed, seek new life changing their synonymous names.
AIG now AIU...ha, as though they believed we'd, one day, forget.
Reaching the dream of homeownership...I'm sorry to have ever attempt it.

Murder-suicides now flood the airwaves of some poor soul that did snap.
Burglaries and violent crimes now overwhelm my city's aerial map.
Rummage sales to sustain some hope, but what is left to sell?
How slow was this decline that we've now found ourselves so close to hell?

Ongoing wars being fought with dollars ciphoned to those shores.
We now have a "car czar" and "pay czar"  and there shall be more!
What other changes are occurring in this land of liberty?
I'm waiting for my poetry to be taxed...is speech still truly free?

Money to be attached to our electric bills to go to the Federal guys.
Sales taxes increasing to afford what the government could not buy.
Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis...a billion dollar mortal joke
Already asking for their own bailout...the operation's already broke.

I miss the days that I was happy and my friends were happy too!
There was always an adventure, something to laugh at, something to do!
Vacations planned and charity given...life seemed so grand back then.
Just a couple of years ago...what I wouldn't give to be back in that "when"

Prices climbing up and confidence falling down...that's where we are today.
Each day, I hope for improvement.  Each day...each day...each day...

(c) June 13, 2009 Lori S. Maynard
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I know that it's the little things that we should all be grateful for these days.  However, it's just rough possessing the realization that you can lose your home and have to decide if you eat from one day to the next.  If I were to end up losing my home, I have no where to go.  I wonder where all of the people have gone from all of those houses with "forclosed" in the front yard?  I never leave my house these days and even just visiting my parents who live about 30 miles away is a major trip that I must plan to have fuel for.

True, the little things are what make us happy...those moments of smelling a freshly cut lawn, the air after a good rain storm and sipping cold lemonade on a hot summer day.  Feeling a tug at your fishing line, a good joke and moments spent with friends and family.

But now...I have to worry about it costing 3 gallons a week to mow my yard regularly and use the weed eater, wonder if I can afford to make the lemonade, if I can afford the fishing license and the bait as well as the gas to get there and the gas needed to visit people.  How sad how reliant we have become on the dollar.  Before, we just never seemed to think about it.  If a friend needed help, there was a handout to give.

What to do when all of your friends have lost their jobs, one is losing their house, one is going through a divorce?  I'm great at making people laugh.  That's what I do....  life may be hard now; but, laughter is still free.

Sorry to have ranted on and on about this... I know that it's a sore subject for a lot of people out there these days.  :o)