Robert M. Zoschke

Forever Sordid Shame

by Robert M. Zoschke

Michael Jackson
finally crumbled
and gave way
underneath the
inescapable weight
of his
forever sordid shame.

In New York City
his oblivious fans
gather in mass
outside the Apollo 
as the Internet shows us
his oblivious fans around the world
crying as they cradle his CDs.

New Millennium
ignorant tears
for Michael Jackson
cascading like a virus
cascading like his
misannointed fame
and misspent fortune.

Nobody from his 
early inner circle
nobody from his
equally scarred family
finding the guts to speak
about his forever sordid shame
so that tears of truth could flow.

The hollow shallow rapture of the lemmings
and the perverse gluttony 
of the CD listening suckerfish
fuels the internet blogs and tv news reports
until all that remains to be done
is for the New York Times
to shake its Thesaurus over his death.

Except 
that is not really 
all
that remains
in need
of really
being done.

Long after the
pop music serenade
of Michael Jackson's music
fades into silence 
with the passing of time
and the passing of generations
an eerier silence will remain.

The eerie silence 
too often common
in the inner circle families
where children are 
bludgeoned with
dysfunction and
abuse.

The dysfunction and abuse
that scarred Michael Jackson forever
trapped him in a noxious cocoon
that he could not escape from
no matter how many 
body altering plastic surgeries
and skin bleachings.

The dysfunction and abuse
that left him embodying
the all too often
sadistically classic symptom
of the abused
becoming
the abuser.

Prior to his death
the last the world 
so significantly heard of Michael Jackson
was his on the verge of bankruptcy tribulation
but the lemmings and the suckerfish never did the math
and the internet blogs and what passes for news coverage
never acknowledged an honest inquiry into the math.

How many of the millions
raked in by Michael Jackson's
hollow shallow lunacy of fame
were paid out to the 
little boys who started to talk
and how many millions were spent
on the theme park that ensnared the little boys?

Right now
in too many soul polluted crevices
of this seemingly 
God Forsaken World
Taliban sadists are throwing acid in girls eyes
and whipping girls with chains 
because those girls went to school.

Right now
in the streets of Iran
a morbidly megalomaniac dictator
has snipers on his palace rooftops
mowing down his own people
who want nothing more than freedom
from having to dress their women like beekeepers.

Right now
in the streets of America
an abused abuser
who couldn't scalpel away
or bleach away
his forever sordid shame
draws the wrong kind of tears.