if you stopped to think about it

you could see this coming long ago

drug addled flower people

huddled in bay area slums

shaking their spare change cups

at the upwardly mobile passers by

third rate Santa Fe artists

and shaman want-to-be’s

waiting tables for rich tourists

then snorting another bindle

of Peruvian marching powder

waiting for nirvana or that

platinum american express card

befuddled dreadlocked refugees

squatting on the Boulder court house lawn

endless hacky-sack and dope

badly tuned guitars

tambourines and drums rending the air

until that year’s first arctic frost

drops eight inches of new snow

then the air is cold and silent

they have disappeared

leaving their trash and mental casualties behind

you may think that now it it different

but only the disease has changed

morphed into a pathological mind virus

that binds you to a one bit world

logic

fact

education

the only cures

but these have long passed

the reach of the afflicted

let me tell you

things are not looking good

Copyright Michael Douglas Scott
8/13/20