The rush of technology
in the Information Age
has left many behind.
The switch from horse and buggy
to the automobile
separated those
who couldn’t catch up
to the new ride
and eager drivers.
The challenge to transition
is an intelligence test
that so many fail
because they can’t accept
the shock of the new,
the terrible afflictions
that prevent evolving
to different conditions
that alter our daily lives,
at least those of us
smart enough to adjust.
It defies understanding,
that many people prefer
violent confrontations
to peaceful coexistence,
regardless of the cost
in lives and treasure lost.
Yet we repeat the pattern
over and over again,
when it’s always easier
to destroy then preserve
our children, homes, countries
in the need to kill enemies.
In the lust for power
and our greatest foe, greed,
we are always willing
to resort to bloody war,
for at best fleeting gains
that temporarily sate
bloated appetites.
It gets more difficult
to get up each morning,
do my hygiene,
do my exercise,
make my breakfast,
shop for necessities,
rest on the way home,
hope I don’t get mugged
by a vicious predator
taking advantage
of infirm elders
no longer capable
of self defense,
a growing problem
in a chaotic land
of declining values
that make the aged
easy pickings.
I watch the tide go in and out
at the East River estuary.
I do not think the river knows
how or why we polluted it,
but as any work of nature
it responds to assault,
so as we kill the river
it kills its dependents
in the water, in the air
and as the fish die out
the birds that feed on them
no longer have a choice
and must beg for food from people.
More and more bodies of water
have become so tainted
that our rivers, seas, oceans
are no longer blue.
We do not understand
that life is connected
to our frail water supply,
while the limited minds
who determine policies,
too dumb to allow repair
of unsafe bridges, unsafe roads,
do not protect our water,
like they don’t protect our air
and seem to be oblivious
to our diminishing future.
There was no media
when Athens lost
the Peloponnesian War,
at the fall of Rome,
the battle of Hastings,
Charles I lost his head.
Only word of mouth,
parchment, tablets,
(not the IPad, dodo)
public opinion formed
by those in power,
for no one else mattered.
Today we have
world wide news
from BBC, CNN,
China Daily
and national sources,
all spewing misinformation,
I mean information
that may or may not be true.
I don’t have enough facts
to decide what’s fake news
and it doesn’t help
that reporters
majored in deception,
most not understanding
they dance to the tune
of puppeteers,
who unlike most of us
will do anything
to get what they want,
guiding the media
liberally,
conservatively,
to prepare the public mind
to dutifully believe
the news of the day.
Molecular Distortion is an unpublished collection that looks at the breaking down of function in a complex society, going through difficult sociological changes: 'Dumbing Down', 'Human Nature', 'Diminished Ability', 'Ebbing Resource', 'News'.