The Wasteland 2022 (2) Poem by Mary Champion

Every morning dawns grey and ersatz.
Like robots they prepare for their routine.
Dull-eyed, they shuffle through the shabby streets.
Purposeless - they follow their instruction.

Directionless - they seek no destination.
Numbly - they live and make their blindfold way
towards the grave - seeking no explanation,
having no care for where or when or why.

Hopeless, helpless, utterly powerless,
they have abandoned the fight for reform -
too befuddled by a diet of lies,
to comprehend the meaning of the term.

They no longer question. They make no plans -
they have no future, desire no future.
Those trivia offering diversions
can no longer bring them any pleasure.

Their amputated souls, shrivelled by this
grind -will soon face the icy blast of winter -
‘twill scatter them across the wilderness
of an existence that has no centre.