By The Dwindling Light (May 23, 2019)

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was
not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not
a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

We’re entering

Another Dark Age.

Despite

Information found

So readily

At one’s fingertips.

Fear and ignorance

Have become

Violence’s deadly tools.

Extremist leaders

Preach damning words

To the masses

Like heavenly mana

Seeking answers

For their despair.

Only left answerless.

Externalizing their anger

Complicitly supporting

Their false Messiah’s

Racism and anger.

Never realizing

Are empowering

A white Christian male base.

Profiteering

From their pain.

Democracy’s candle

Flickers and flutters

In this troubling breeze

That envelopes us

Globally.

Reviving past age’s zeitgeist

Where human life was

Wantonly discarded

For dogmatic beliefs.

As human ashes

Filled the sky

Like falling snowflakes.

Therisa © 2019

Author’s note: I remembered the Jack Klugman character role (Quincy), in the late 1970s and early 1980s show, Quincy, M.E., spoke a variation of Pastor Martin Niemöller's famous quote, about Germany's complicity through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. Sparking the writing of this poem, comparing modern Right wing conservative extremist, with the Nazis. 

And yes, I do remember things like this, while struggling with my short term memory.