Sunset In America?

"The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

William Faulkner

I consider myself an optimist. Not an intellectual. In fact, I am only now starting to formulate the questions which define my reality. Something most of you reading this did long ago. Hey, better late than never. I write this in the solitude of my rent stabilized Brooklyn apartment where fully half of my income is paid in rent. Yet, my landlords want more.

I write to you this day after a political convention dominates the news even as two more police officers were shot in California, one fatally. Yet, that story is relegated to page two of our collective national newspaper.

The questions I am beginning to ask are fundamental.

Must we be at war with ourselves everyday? Has life become so cheap and meaningless we would be willing to sacrifice our children at an unholy alter? What is "Holiness"? Do we put too much power in the hands of a few and call it democracy? Is it really all about what it looks like? Who puts the value on wealth and money? Where have all the true "Leaders"gone? Is POKEMON evil?

Hillary or Donald?

Really?

Is that all we got? Our American radical extremes made manifest in the persons of a hustler who is a cross between PT Barnum and Larry Flynt, (no disrespect to Larry Flynt), and a career politician uniquely positioned to make history by becoming a "first" woman President of the United States?
(No disrespect intended to either women or to the word United.)

My last question for this missive is this: How many more officers in blue, and the people whom they are sworn to protect and serve will die before November because day after day our eyes are on a sparkling piece of costume jewelry distracting us from the issues dragging our sun into a long, deep, dark night?