Oh, we have been
folded in and folded in,
our ignorance inculcated
through twists and turns
and suffering, and the one
apparent truth, that we are
not yet happy

We have done all the right things
and still it eludes us. We
have our good days
where we’re turned in such a way
that we don’t see the black wall looming;
We have our seminars and chants
to protect us from what we see
out of the corners of our eyes

We can’t be called complicit
if we haven’t seen the system,
can’t be called complicit
when we’re impoverished.
Yet when we see the role
we have been made to play,
It’s time for us
to find a way to stop.

Yes, we’ve all been victims,
no less we, who’ve ridden on the backs of slaves,
whip in hand, all our lives,
We who wondered where the ache was coming from —
a pain we couldn’t locate for its distance,
We who now watch our kids walk aimless,
having come to the end of the road we
(innocently) sent them down

So now, if we have any power at all,
the one thing we can do with it is turn —
turn away from our sugar-drugged,
glamour-brainwashed,
fear inflicted stupor
and find a way to live.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2015

How does it feel
to be Rome falling?
— This is something
we can now know

Might have the same urgency
as how we cast our hopes
on what we pray will float
free of the massive
crumbling sham
that called itself
our great society

It’s strange how short a time we’ve known,
It’s strange how obvious it seems —
The utter emptiness of
all we’re told to strive for,
The spirit-hunger in our dreams

Rome falls
and there is much it takes with it
in the roaring vacuum it sucks down,
But if we hold each other
and hold what’s true
we will emerge
ready to begin again,
tender, new.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 7, 2014