The Dark Americans Poem by Raj Dronamraju

The Dark Americans, not meaning skin color
Not physical description, not character assassination

The Dark Americans, an archetype all the same
Living under perennial anxiety cloud banks
Clouds the color of faded canvas bags

The Dark Americans seek respect and meaning which they don't get in work or don't find work at all
Find it instead in drugs, drink, drama,
Or just a couch, a computer, a TV
Free streaming video, interactive illusions

The Dark Americans no longer say excuse me
When they cut into lines like surgeons wearing mittens
That heaviness, it dispels hope and it repels good fortune
And it brings you a community that reeks like sewage

That's your turn off, distant police sirens
That's your factory, these cheap goods fly off the shelves
The lazy unchallenged mind in full flight
The flight of the garbage sow powered by blind panic