TV Dinner

The TV and dinner have pushed me
far too close to the edge.
I have fled the house to stand on the back porch
gulping down as much fresh air
as my damaged lungs can consume,
trying to create that belch
that will relieve the turbulent indigestion
created by burnt minestrone soup.

Even the wind soughing
through the early Spring blossoms on the trees,
a sound that once soothed,
now grates on my ears.

Sour food and television politics
working in concert
have left me twisted and sickened.
Half truth, gleefully delivered as full fact
by smug pundits whose idea of argument
is shouting down the opposition
has taken an overdone dish
and angrily knotted it into toxic distress.

I will not be misled.
But I worry for all those who are,
who cannot see through the fire and bluster
and know that Oz is merely
an ineffectual man behind the curtain
jabbing rhetorical buttons,
and pulling emotional levers.
The epitome of charade,
yet, unfortunately, this is not a game.
Fresh air and nature bring calm
and it is easy to vow
never to eat dinner and watch
the electronic madness again.
But, it is difficult to hear
the poisoned words parroted
by coworker’s mouths the next day,
making a fresh, no doubt unsullied lunch
suddenly look and smell distasteful.

Today's poem is another jigsaw effort utilizing 10 words by my sister-in-law Janet Smith. The words are argument, concert, misled, epitome, curtain, minestrone, soughing, turbulent, indigestion, gleefully.