The Lights Are Going Out All Over

The lights are slowly going out all over

All around our engines are starting to shut down

No longer does the blue entertainment light dance out of every living room

More bridges are simply too unsafe to even try and cross

The stores are closing up, all across the little towns

Barbecues are flickering out all across this land that god had blessed

Monstrous RVs sit empty for lack of good cheap fuel

Bluehairs wait in vain for their outsourced contract foreign servants

Billboards are becoming illegible due to wind and rain and sun

The water taps only flow a trickle of dark and smelly brine

The roads seem to be growing ever harder to negotiate

Halted trains are blocking intersections in a mostly haphazard fashion

Can’t pick up no more early morning traffic scans or upbeat weather reports

Tightfaced mommies ferrying soccer broods are growing ever scarcer

Vacuous mall tweenies indolently draining daddy’s cash are disappearing daily

Our power just shuts off randomly for hours each and every day

MickieD even runs out of burgers with increasing regularity

Been standin on line for day-old factory white bread for hours, all the time

Bulldozers are sitting idle and power tools lay listless with no energy to drive them

Middle Management’s micro death march projects just aren’t moving us anymore

Toilets aren’t flushing so there’s clumps and tissue everywhere in the bushes

The president assures us that our ingenious people can meet all of these challenges and more

Suburban survivalists have taken over all the forest campgrounds

Wal*Marts are closing up all over cause China’s cut them off

Credit markets are frozen up again but there’s no bailout on the way this time

Military convoys are halted as the soldiers go on patrol to look for gasoline

The garbage trucks don’t come too much and the stuff has piled up real high

They say the fundamentals are still solid but it just doesn’t matter anymore

My downloads don’t hardly ever finish cause so many servers are simply gone

Monday night football even got called off last week cause the stadium lights were out

Formerly swaggering apartment cowboys cant find beer at their favorite stores

The cops are always hurrying off somewhere but never seem to stop

Saw tractors and combines sitting empty out in stubbly, unkempt fields

Staffs at all the hospitals are being replaced by unpaid security guards

The tourist has disappeared as an income source for hungry locals of every stripe

It’s best just to sit quietly in the churches listening to mumbling priests and watching candles burn

Choices That Help Define Us

Is it that expensive new car and the big-screen hi-def DVD-TV?

Maybe just a warm old wool sweater and a good book when it’s cold

There’s an extra trip to the mall and lots of trash cans for the packaging

Or recycling all that is feasible even if nobody makes you, or pays you to do it

How about that 8 foot high pickup with the custom exhausts

Then there’s that cute little hybrid with all its hitech gizzies

Is it the money we shell out for expensive food, drink and the falsely servile help,

Rather than the work that goes into the creation of a meal on our own

Could be an oversized faux palace tended by a legion of anonymous illegales

Or possibly crawling on your knees to repair something that’s gotten broken

How about racing your son on loud smoky snowmobiles thru a blurred forest

Instead of snowshoeing in silence, searching for peace in that good silence

You could download a hundred songs and strike out with the iPod

Or strum a few chords and scribble out a couple verses of your own

Relax on the couch with beer and calorie-laden snacks for the big game

Alternatively, using the Internet, go into depth on some non-trivial issue

Is it struggling to find ways to keep spending more than you earn

Maybe embracing both hard work as well as building up a bit of savings

Hanging out barefoot in shorts and tees in a monstrous house all during winter

Turning down a more efficient heating system and dressing for the seasons

Saving time at the drive-thru and chowing down fast while still on your way

Eating stuff that didn’t come out of cans, that you cooked up on your own

Is it get-rich-quick schemes involving currencies, commodities and derivatives

Maybe ploddingly saving via conservative investments, year after year

Could it be first class flights to expensive resorts and fancy restaurants

Or going cheaply, traveling widely, eating locally and wearing little jewelry

There’s belief directed by holy books, prophets and literalist, revealed truths

Then there’s simple faith in the human struggle against the inevitable void

Maybe it’s always waiting for something that quickly disappears into the blur

Or is it striving to take pleasure in the task and not just its momentary completion

Having others just do as much for you as quickly as you can sign the bill

Or attaining a bit of technical mastery over your house, its contents and the cars