Written in 1999, end of the millennium looming. I was 46, with teenage children and an unhappy marriage and miserable, feeling trapped in the state of Maine, and I hadn’t written much in a long time. At some point, on February 15th, I decided I needed to start a writing project, a collection of writings, to see what would come out.
And come out it did. This is the first of the works, which went on for the better part of two years and was still being added to as late as 2005. Work that saw me through major life changes that altered my life in almost inconceivable ways: divorce, remarriage, separation and estrangement from my children, cross-country relocation; a total uprooting. And behind it all the writing went on.
And this the first. The sense of depression is apparent, but the ennui of Feb 15, 1999 seems to shoehorn onto the current situation in our country to a T.
Feb 15, 1999
My, aren't these times of avarice and larceny,
lies so sweet in the telling.
Crawling to the end of the twentieth century,
Weary, corrupt, abysmally vain.
Aren't these times of millennial stupor.
America, you're the last superpower and you're
Unwilling to feed your children or cure your sick,
Unwilling to house your homeless,
And unwilling, still, to put down your arms.
I am taking my grimy shoulder from the wheel.
The haves have it all now (and the have-nots have nothing,
Not even a voice).
No one asked me my millennial plans,
But just to let you know,
I’m going to climb behind the wheel
Of my '62 Thunderbird and drive all night,
Dodging gangsters and comets,
And set the A.M. dial
To WABC out of NYC,
and dream of BB King and Pink Floyd,
Psychedelic Blues scrambling down black night
Millennial streets,
Hoping for the rise of some new dawn.
The punks were right with their spike pink hair
And vivid tattoos.
America you wouldn't listen to reason and now here we are, Our heroes
Are gone mad or died.
We're left with jaded dreams and we're refugees from the war.
The only winners were Madison Ave,
And the few haves.
My spirit of cooperation died with my illusions.
Now I live in the America of my imagination, by choice.
America everywhere I turn
Your face so ugly, derelict and unkempt,
The arrogance revealed, your mean and callous disregard
Spilled from every pore,
Bleeding from screaming repulsive headlines of a butcher's wetdream newspaper.
Aren't these days of avarice.
The wheel has turned.
I've dreamt it wasn't always this way,
I've dreamt of tolerance, civility,
And I even dreamt once of compassion, but it was
Long ago.
Aren't these days of malicious intent.
The smell rises up unmistakable, the wafting scent
Of sheep led to slaughter,
That earthy stench of blood and sheepshit.
As the bile rises
The bleating deafens, air pierced with the shrill panicky cry
Stumbling and reeling from the scene of the crime,
And the rest of the wretched weak are buried
In shallow graves.
James Garland Poetry 