Free Dumb...

 

© December 18, 2020, the Griot Poet

The sign affixed in front of the store: “please wear a mask before entering,”

The pleasant announcement over the intercom reinforces the same message,

 

One unmasked contrarian Neanderthal in sports shorts; the other, little old lady in a French beret,

At this point, you look like the idiot persons who walked into a formal banquet in your pajamas,

You look ridiculous.

New flash Gollum: no one likes this shit,

But, because of the stupidity of a malignant narcissist, we're in an extended pandemic,

This could have been over with quick: wear a mask, wash your hands, social distance,

Birther Barbie couldn't pass up a new gimmick,

 

You’re confusing:

Freedom,

With free to be stupid,

 

“No shirt, no shoes, no service,”

Long non-controversial,

Unless you're counting your parents,

Streaking during football games

In the 1970s,

Nudity we didn’t want to see,

Breaking laws against public indecency,

After all: this isn’t Hippie Hollow Beach,

 

Freedom does NOT mean,

Being contrarian to common sense,

Refusing to wear a simple mask,

Trying to start an argument,

 

Freedom means,

The ability to take in new information and make rational decisions,

 

I repeat: Like wearing a mask during this pandemic,

Washing your hands; staying six feet distant from your neighbors in this grocer,

 

To slow the spread of a novel coronavirus that doesn’t give a shit

Who’s your presidential candidate,

Or, whether you believe in science or its existence,

On a primitive level: your just a vector it uses to propagate,

And viciously replicate

Itself on your borrowed scaffold DNA,

 

During the previous administration,

You were ranting about Obamacare “death panels.”

Killing grandparents,

I guess now; you’re taking the matter into your own hands,

Who better to euthanize grandma and grandpa than family?

 

Don’t smack back about “family values,”

As I clap back with this spoken word truth piece,

 

Ben Bu Ichi:

“Pen and sword in one accord,”

Penname for:

Gichin Funakoshi,

Founder of Shotokan karate,

 

I give my body over to martial arts mastery,

My mind to poetry, physics, and nanotechnology,

 

And my Ben Bu Ichi,

In this grocery store,

To immortalize your “free & dumb” stupidity.