I wake up to view the morn’

The sun shines and the crisp air

Makes the hair on my neck stand-to

It’s too early to feel this depleted

Much to do and little time

But how, when time

Here is all that we have?

The quandary makes me numb

I walk these streets

In filth and famine and see

The losses and gains that

I measure block by block

I strain to see what lies beneath

In that odd pile of dirt

I am both right and wrong

It’s something, but nothing – this time

I extend my arm and open my vein freely

Lifeblood pours into its mouth

Clutching belly, the beast stirs displeased

It asks for more

I return, another days useless energy spent

And struggle to meet needs and demands

But between commitments and deadlines

I find time to open the newspaper

Words of trouble trouble me

Stories of destitution and crimes

Shootings in schools, town halls, campuses

Is it really not here, but there?

I am on the front line of Democracy

And while I toil to maintain the control

We fail to take control of ourselves

All an eggshell’s shadow, haunting me

For I am a Legionnaire on the frontier

Guarding my post dutifully

I sit on Hadrian’s Wall

While Rome rots from the inside