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Two Poems

by Michael N. Thompson

Good Morning America

Good morning America,
That hangover you feel
Is the knowledge
That your political leaders
Are hollow men
And the police
Are mere bullies
With Billy clubs and small cocks

You send your soldiers
To fight battles
That aren’t any of your business
And your news channels
Preach propaganda
Slanted towards their own agendas
That benefit the one percent

Good morning America,
Occupying the grand machine
While inhaling winds of change
Goes largely unnoticed
By media outlets under control
Of the corporation claw
And mob scene casualties
Are seen as collateral damage

Good morning America,
The bile you taste
In your self-righteous throat
Is from rushing like a savior
To hold telethons
For crumbling nations
While your own citizens
die from starvation
And sleep on sidewalks
Like bodies in shallow graves

September 11, 2001: Los Angeles

I had called in sick
Without knowing
That towers fell
Or the Pentagon
Was on fire

My throat was raw
From running
In East Hollywood’s AM chill
And working in a boiler room,
The inability to speak clearly
Was a liability

I turned on Good Morning America
Only to be bowled over
By the smoke and chaos,
But like Morgan Freeman
So famously stated,
It didn’t move the needle much
Here in California

I didn’t know anybody
Affected by the downfall
So I lived inside
My little cocoon
Until I had to catch a flight

Between the x-rays,
The liquid rations
And removal of footwear,
It was only then
That I cursed the transgressors

Michael N. Thompson is the result of a debauched threesome between Darby Crash, Anne Sexton, and Henry Rollins. His poems have been published in numerous literary journals including Word Riot, Toronto Quarterly, and Lummox Press. He is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent being Verbal Alchemy (Blunt Trauma Press, 2012) and the forthcoming A Murder Of Crows (University Of Hell Press, 2013). Michael lives among the pastures and pines in Northern California where nobody notices that he’s antisocial.

Lead image: “King Mango Strut 2011” (via Flickr user Bob B. Brown)