“The Chair of the Federal Reserve reported today that although the country’s financial situation appears to be bleak, he is most certain the upturn of the recession is in sight.”
What has become of Suburbia, Middle America,
you know, where you live? Are her lawns
kelly green and curtly manicured? Is the minivan
still stocked with soccer, baseball and football
adventures? Does the ferris wheel lollipop around with
rosy-cheeked giggles and cheers for pizza afterwards?
Or has the American Dream found a new normal,
a blunt elbow-blow reality so tritely named urban blight?
The picture, now expanding, is recycled nightly
in the news. Its graffiti mural bleeds into Chicago streets
rendering illiterate rappers famous and suits on LaSalle
awkward and powerless. Yes, it sloshes about the neighborhood
while teenage angst results in twitter suicides and Margaret
copes with mommy juice and The View. Empty cargo trains slug about,
pushing town to town, barricading these from those
pawn shop boarded-up mom-and-pops
foreclosure liquor store empty church
pawn shop vacant lot notice how freeway on-ramps
are always headed out.
Copyright Asani Charles 4/22/13
Life in Print 