Ode to Mice and Vice of Men

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil … Plato

All night these timorous creatures surreptitiously scamper

Along the ceiling, furtively scratching sleeplessness for me,

Svelte slender grey buff bodies with tiny claws and sharp teeth,

Unwanted intruders from fields and woodlands, survivors,

Lured cruelly by peanut-flavored morsels of food and dying

Mercilessly with crushed head by metal springs of a trap.

But what about the scamperings in my mind of unwanted thoughts

That scuttle day and night trying to survive in a mindscape …

Where mass consumption feeds accumulation by a few —

Where political equality becomes war with globalist flavor —

Where lines of artificial code can shape one’s behavior —

And self-interest is rational greed normalizing lies and killing truth.

Will democracy get trapped in this vice grip of radicalized men

Of crushing hypocrisy with sound-bite seconds that celebrate ignorance?

Annemarie Berukoff

Note: This mouse was caught only by his leg, struggling to get free and suffering a painful demise. Likewise, even one bad lure or action, a faulty trap, can paralyze an entire functioning system…