Cultural Differences

by George Searles

It’s easy to find fault with how we live
in this country, killing half our time glued,

as the saying goes, to the television,
watching a bizarre array of extreme sports

and equally pointless conventional ones,
and wasting the other half scanning our phones

in garish shopping malls as big as baronies —
faux villages with junk food franchises,

private security squads, and valet parking
for the luxury sedans, racy coupes, and SUVs.

Elsewhere in the world, life’s song is played
in a simpler, less self–indulgent key.

People go about their business
in a more purposeful, down–to–earth sort of way,

undistracted by excess, alertly scurrying
from place to ruined place in a wary semi–crouch

while trucks explode at curbside and bullets ricochet
off buildings and splash on pavement stones.