A constant background noise;
especially: One that drowns out other sounds
The void left by the forgotten songbirds is seamlessly
filled by smarmy advertising messages
The roaring diesel fumes wafting softly into her crib do not
stir this safely sleeping urban infant
News reports of inept, corrupt and wasteful governance no
longer provoke any real response
Endless
sad studies are smothered behind the deafening background
noise we continuously create
Wild fish are not startled by gently falling acid rain from
distant hissing coal stacks
The awkward silence of a clear-cut is unnoticeable atop
growling wreckreational vehicles
Nobody leaps to the rescue of croaking frogs replaced by
giant, rumbling bulldozers, once again
Dirty waters and climate change now lie safely outside our
self-circumscribed hearing range
Screams from the refugee camps are muffled by our shopping,
work and entertainment activities
Constant identical reports of even more extinctions aren’t
going to motivate anyone again
The ever-dirtier business of politics no longer galvanizes
the jaded multitude even a bit
People docilely accept that in good times or bad, the rich
will profiteer at their expense
Blathering leaders are not expected to solve real problems
correctly, cheaply or on time
Our loud and illiterate offspring are simply part of a vast
and privatizing, comforting white noise
The unfortunate are blown off behind our sunglasses, earbuds
and cynically-texting smirks
Even Scot-free bailouts of unregulated legal swindlers who are
ruining our lives doesn’t move us
Ever more wasteful borrow-and-spend programs cannot provoke
some mighty voter wrath
Continuous broadcast of morally repugnant crimes have worn
out our emotional responses
Distress cries that might otherwise slow our progress are
safely obscured by a soothing traffic roar
The wise voices of our ancestors have been attenuated into
the meaningless background noise
That invisible, anonymous CEOs are naturally worth their
guaranteed millions is taken at face value
It is accepted that gutting our futures thru offshoring
should earn them more whopping bonuses
That they merged and downsized us forever for quick profits
will not set us upon them
We tacitly accept the morality of efforts to evade the
spirit of our laws via compulsive loopholeing
Un-inspected, adulterated foreign food ingredients will not
rouse us up off our beloved couches
Omnipresent evidence of over-population is obscured by the
simple crush of so many bodies
The voice of reason is smothered by our hoarse attempt to
curse over their many tangled jingles
That our own thoughts must now be produced as shouts is not
perceptible to us within the din
There’s really nothing between the inaudible lines blurring
advertising, news and entertainment
Our crumbling infrastructure does not decay nearly loudly
enough to claim even a little attention
Endless strident sound bite repetition completely deadens
the occasional quiet and reasoned debate
The deafening sound of devastating warfare drowns out those
faint, weak-kneed cries for peace
Relentless repetition of myriad, simple but cleverly-coded
messages digitally layers our angry brains
A world of screams and shouts and tears are melded into a
featureless but high-decibel abstraction
Ungodly special effects are launched which cannot gain
attention for more than a few seconds
Loud, un-syncopated random outbursts occur so fast as to
blend into a surrounding roar
This deafening white noise creates our privacy and thereby
we think, preserves our sanity
But the vast silence of the void that surrounds us still
terrifies as it makes its now rare appearance
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