Tell me I don’t live in Dystopia

Some people
delight in weird
scary stories
about our future
dystopian world
Not me
I read the news
and know
we are already there

How about
the proxy war in Europe?
How about lunatics
threatening nuclear war?
How about idiots across
the political spectrum
running countries?
How about hackers
that build algorithms
to mine our data?
Artificial intelligence?
How about
extreme weather?
fires, floods, smoke, heat,
monster hurricanes
How about the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers
drying up in Iraq?
the cradle of civilization

How about
finding Indian graves
in school yards
from a century ago?
removing, reviling, turning away
Native Americans
How about
PGA golf getting
a billion dollars from the Arabs?

How about
the civil war we’re fighting?
the same one for over 170 years
we aren’t going to have another civil war
we’re still fighting the same one
How about
the legacy of slavery?
Black people are you free?
What is critical race theory anyway?
Asian Americans, are you safe?
Latinos, are you safe?

How about
the U.S. electrical grid?
scary
How about electric cars
dependent on rare metals
found in rare places?

And do we need one more
British murder mystery on PBS?
How about mass shootings?
This is the sign of a sane society?
Hot comes faster
we scramble to adjust
Not fast enough
Hot comes faster

Disaster follows disaster
the world goes to waste
for future generations
Present generations
sit helpless
distracted by social media
Dictators try
to shut us up
as we talk and talk
voicing no-fact opinions
endlessly
Who cares?
Need I go on?
We already live in dystopia.