"HWY 67, June 2014" (Mature) (Audio Included)

[blueinferno07]

(A car accident out on HWY 67 in Dallas, Tx resulted in a car fire that trapped two people inside. An off duty officer stopped to help, and, as he screamed for fire extinguishers, the "spectators" stood with their cell phones out taking video. One woman got so close the officer had to tell her to step back. This story made me worry for our humanity. It started as an audio piece, so I have included it here.)

"HWY 67, June 2014"
You called it
“The perversion of social media;”
men and women standing slack-jawed,
drooling hyenas
roasting marshmallows over a burning
corpse.

I wrote this to tell you we are better than that.
I wanted to say we are good at heart;
just misunderstood
innocent and naïve…
but I couldn’t even form the thought without laughing.

Click went the camera phones;
they couldn’t hear our nooses sighing in fevered
anticipation;
instead of cutting us loose
they pulled tighter;
we sink
ever lower into
ourselves.

We say we have evolved beyond
Sodom and Salem,
but we still execute the innocent
on live TV
and weep oceans of crocodile tears
so the whole world can see we are
sensitive
empathetic
and human.

We don’t give a damn about dying with dignity.
Our Twitter handle reads:
#lifeisworthlosing
If you can strike it rich,
why not let the mother and her infant son burn
in the metal sea of a highway wreck.
We’re so pleasantly detached,
lost in the soft glow of a cell phone
and as long as the video gets a million views
you can’t really call it a loss.

In fact,
let’s get a photo of the mother’s
mangled corpse,
her arms and body still shielding
the charred remains of her son.
Maybe, if we’re lucky,
the six o’clock news will pick it up
and we can get our fifteen minutes weeping on TV
to the rhythm of fire trucks and police sirens.
Eye witness accounts are worth a lot more than the tales of a survivor.

We can slither up
like the degenerate reptiles we are
and collect sandwich bags full of half cremated flesh.
Maybe, if we’re lucky,
a piece of puss will shoot from their wounds
that looks like Jesus Christ
and we can sell it freeze dried on EBay
for half a billion dollars.
Or, we could just eat it and get our own reality show.

But, let’s get real:
life is the greatest reality show.

We don’t feel shame because we are not required to.
Soon enough, the word will be erased
and we will make the final leap,
scooping out our brains with melon ballers
to be replaced with
cavernous empty space.

At the end of this tunnel
a smartphone glows temptingly.
We are moths to the flame.
Let the innocent burn today,
we will burn tomorrow.

[Farkas]

Hi

You must have heard the story about the "scorpion and the water buffalo." This insensitivity, this lack of empathy is the result of full emersion into the “arts" that assault our senses where we are indeed a "moth to a flame." Alternatively, like an addict we must have more.

Farkas

[dwells]

In the thrall of the one-eyed monster BI. We like to watch and if it's disagreeable, then just change the channel. Real life, yea I've heard of that; Disney movie as I recall. Care for a melon ball?
Ghouls R' Us, and the firemen always get the best stuff, after the rings and watches cool down. Cheers for this exceptional piece on the spectators we become!

[JASON]

sensationalism sells!! sad how we have all become so preoccupied with the
misfortune of others...A sick state of affairs.
Reckon you vented your anger pretty thoroughly - a lot to think about!

[jim_moonan]

This is the emblematic disconnect of our time. Those who trivialize this seismic shift in values are simply the problem. It comes down to either you get it, or you don't. If you don't, you are indeed lost. For far too many, technology has replaced human experience with artifact. Thanks for writing this.