Rozniecki's poem is an attack on the way advertising and news media manipulate us. The speaker opens with the language of alarm: an "epidemic" of murder, rape and theft, followed by orders to lock doors, install alarms and buy a gun. Then comes the twist, tucked into a single line: "All the while crime decreases." The fear, the poem suggests, is manufactured so that people will buy things.
The second half shifts to the cheerful side of the same machine. Smiling faces, advice on improving your life, and bold claims like "the first of its kind" promise love and happiness. The speaker sees both tones as the same trick, built from short, repeated bursts, "thirty seconds at a time."
The mood is cynical and weary, with a flat, list-like rhythm that mimics the endless flow of commercials. The final line is the sharpest: what's really being sold is only "the illusion of being safe and contemporary."