Letter #2 (Cold War)

all day long we accumulate, and when it occurs to us what we are doing, we are shown a Soviet bread line, a winter's day in July

a spy satellite explodes -- the Space Shuttle -- and Israel responds by bombing Southern Lebanon

South Africa is a class problem, not a a race problem, and for saying so she is beaten by her sisters

all day long we accumulate, engage in some form of pyramid-making, while our elected officials sit around untelevised

and peel back the welfare state, remove what is conducive, toss its shielding aside

we knew it was wrong, we protested, but we never imagined what it would look like, what monsters it would let loose

and now they are here, not up top but among us, our friends, suddenly full of shrugs where once they had thoughts

Let the market decide is now a friend of that shrug, and I want to kill myself, return to what was best about my youth and how it works in heaven