Things Are Bad   Things are bad, the doors are unhinging, guardrails are down, the birds have stopped singing, waters are rising, hard rains are failing, hard men have grabbed the reins, brainless wars are fought over little-boy playthings, over tantrums, tiny hands, wounded pride, peccadillos, passing fancies, and meanwhile fire ants and poison ivy rampage northward, killing frosts creep southward, storm clouds gather westward, plagues loom eastward, our constitution is cracked, our spirits are snuffed, the best have been shouted down by the worst, the blues are back in town, it looks like we’ve been had — trouble ahead.                          Like I said, things are bad.                                                                     October 2019     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont October 2019