Sickness slips into

the body politic and

slowly eats away 

 Blank canvases can

offer a new world or a 

ceaseless fearful void 

They gnash their awful

teeth and wail their awful wails

but nothing changes 

Dopamine drained from 

developing brains serves the 

unquenchable Dow

Strangers passing by,

their faces blank masks, reveal 

nothing as they go

Reaped from our ripe fields,

but not for you and me, who

stand on fallow land

The approaching dawn

can't get the baked on grease off 

of my crusty soul