Since retirement
I have gradually become more disappointed
with watching
and listening
to performers,
to on-screen entertainments,
to emotional yet disembodied hypnosis,
to vicarious fascinations
now suspiciously corrupt

Performance watching
becomes a cheaply vacuous substitute
for real life engagement
in compassion with hope;

Or even social disengagement
in disdain
with chilling cynicism.

I feel drawn out of retiring
and into some healthy perspiring
in a fluid multicultural river
watering compassion,

Steering clear of a tangle of wires
and technology
feeding isolated despair.

Mindless entertainments
are probable on screen
and possible reading choices too

Feeling guilty as I age
leaving way too much
for future generations
to undo.

Too needy
and wounded
and busy protecting privacy

Projecting charismatic fame
to blame
and shame
for all my ambivalence,
doubts
dark nights leaning into fear
to risk more
than breathing through another episode
of the Mary Tyler Moore

USA middleclass white folks
entertainment
without engagement
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