Looking Askance

In how many ways can Americans or humans in general not communicate? Looking Askance illustrates some ways from the standpoint of someone who is sorely offended by this common and persistent failing.Beginning with a sensitive individual who in wanting to score a social success is demoralized by hypocrisy guilt it moves to the person who withdraws from socializing due to ulterior motives that interfere with the simple need to socialize; then there is the person who in seeking connection through social media feels the futility of communicating in a two- or even one-dimensional environment.Eventually in this collection frustration becomes more interpersonal and intense. Varying style-wise rhyme and alliteration are used as satirical instensifiers while direct invective uses exaggerated comparisons to make its most egregious points. On the other hand at least one poem recognizes the evasiveness inherent in communication as necessary while another decries our vulnerability to distortions in the political arena. We can surmise that writing about frustration in communicating may be one way to rise above it or at least temporarily relieve it; nevertheless it may be that in the current new century we humans are becoming more removed from each other and stifled in our need to connect.