Product of General Motors

What good is a broken refrigerator
Fixed repeatedly of the same problem
That still can't keep milk from curdling
Vegetables from spoiling and poisons
From the mouths of the unwary?

What good are these broken lamps
Dim, if they're ever gotten to work at all
If all they can shine on is wreckage
The debris of lives spent in futility?

What good is the mother's pride
Her need to be a homemaker and to be orderly
When her home is chaos
Filthy, cluttered, reeking more than faintly of urine?
Her children can't stand her, resent her for she has made them
Cynical and weary of her world,
The only world she ever showed them.

What good is her husband, the father,
Who could have been so much more
But worked two menial jobs for a decade,
Squandering his potential
Taking his anger and frustration out on his family
Until now he has become almost obsolete,
Monopolizing as best he can as much as he can
So he's still needed now, unemployed and dying?

How much solace can one take in acceptance
If it is given in resignation
For Sisyphus can only have despaired,
Knowing his beginning and his end
His smile is the Cheshire grin of mania.

What good is teaching the American dream
To the son of those who came to this country
So full of hope, potential, and the other adjectives suckers are made of
Only to see the dream fail?
And what good is the son for whom the parents will dare to dream again
Who doesn't even want to live for himself anymore,
Let alone let others live through him?