Storm Front

May 19, 2025

So slowly evening clouds drift across the valley

            From the coast,

The surrounding fortress of fir and cedar silhouetted 

            Against shadowy sky in dwindling light,

Clear skies of the afternoon giving way

            To advancing weather,

Yet Castor and Pollux shine through a break, Capella,

            Then Polaris, I watch from the ruins,

The lights gleaming from Route 22,

It looks like America used to look, so quickly devolving,

            So hard to tell,

America has not been quite the same for some time,

            For quite some time,

Since presidents and senators and civic leaders started

            Getting gunned down,

Since global pandemic finally landed on our shores,

            Since oligarchs encouraged racism,

Since more than half of Americans turned to fascism

            For succor, you suckers,

It looks like America, but so clearly it is not,

            As I watch from the ruins,

They’re racing again down on River Road,

            The whine of redlining engines,

And I sense, as I listen to the roar,

Our future grimness,

The prognosis, as they say, is not good,

            For our entitled population,

Drunk on power and answerable to no one,

            Gulping down resources,

Spitting ever more venom and damning consequence,

            Damning the future,

It looks like America, unwilling, uninterested, and in the end

            Unable to respond responsibly, intelligently, to

                        Our profoundly existential crisis.

Clouds and darkness cover the valley,

`A chill spring night,

Calm air still, scented with spring blossom,

            Soon it will rain.

And from the shameless commerce division….

The chapbook “The Cove”, by James Garland, published in 2020, when America was still a free and democratic nation, is available from Amazon.