EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM: “We Interrupt Your Regular Scheduled Program…. “
(VIDEO/AUDIO RECORDING “EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM”) ORIGINAL POEM/WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY SUSAN KIRSCHBAUM (COPYRIGHT 2020) ** PHOTO OF SUSAN KIRSCHBAUM AND HER FATHER MARVIN, PHILADELPHIA, PA, AKA “PHILLY,” ONCE UPON A TIME….. (PLAY/SOUND ON!)
Text:
My insomnia is so strange now
I look up at the clock
It’s inching near 5 am
The silence questions me
Is this even real?
Are we really locked inside,
Waiting for the darkness to lift?
Is there really a Madman in the White House?
Could I possibly fall asleep to a new dawn,
Where none of this were true?
I talk to my father as if he were sitting here
“You’re caught in an illusion, kid.”
This is a test of
The Emergency Broadcast System
Anyone remember those ads?
The blaring alarm that interrupted your TV
At unreal hours,
Like now
They don’t play those anymore
Cause the Emergency Broadcast
Is ongoing.
**Poem by Susan Kirschbaum/Copyright 2020.