Democracy is dying.  The sky is not falling. Democracy, I said, is falling. Does anyone remember civics? The rights and duties of citizens? Do you know your rights? Your duties? This is a form of torture. Death by a thousand turned heads. Turned downward as if in mourning but no, not sorrow. Oblivion. Most folks are on their phones while Democracy is dying. Calling out to be saved. But we were taught not to answer calls we don’t recognize. Democracy. The freedoms we call our own. Individualism. Does any of this ring a bell? Hello? Time is running out. Democracy is dying and all we do is watch? Remember, it is the poet, the artist and the intellectual who are among the first to be rounded up under authoritarian regimes?

after killing it
the skin wings
of a bat

Peter Newton