Déjà vu all over again

I jotted the draft of this poem down early last year, and filed it away until this week, when hearing the expression again reminded me the poem needed finishing. I’d had the radio on as background noise while researching information I needed for the semi-historical verse novel I’m currently writing. When I dug out the research notes this week to check a fact, I found the scrawled poem draft on the back.
Here it is in its current form

 

Déjà vu all over again

“It’s déjà vu all over again!” he said

in response to the radio interviewer’s question

about the price of milk in the supermarket, or

the politicians’ expenses, or perhaps about

public servants not caring about the public

they’re supposed to serve. Whatever

It was, despite his comment, he was not
really surprised. He’d seen it all before (before).

Nothing new. What goes around, comes

Around. Etcetera.

He could just as well have said the Iraq War/

Invasion was déjà vu all over again for

Vietnam, which the Koreans could say was

déja vu all over again.

Or, except he was a man, and probably didn’t

think about it, that Indian women being raped

and beaten and blamed for being raped, and

blamed for speaking out about it, was déjà vu

all over again for all other women who’d been

raped and beaten and blamed for speaking out.