when will the pneumatic drills stop? the buses? the trains on the tracks? the jets on the tarmac with their managing directors on cocaine singing wild anthems at rampant androids gone berserk? banks emptied of cash, wallets full of useless plastic? is it just a bad film? weak psychology's anxiety at a buffoon's end of the world pushed as it teeters into a bed of thorns? can so many riches be wiped off in a day? will they come back tomorrow the same way? so much pain, so little blood. but the blood is spilled elsewhere.
democracy you say began with principles, the notion of the many, not the mass, not the undifferentiated, but the identified minnows within the group and groups within groups, all with names, all respected, taken care of, massaged into old age and gently lain to rest upon final heartbeat. they all had a vote upon adulthood. they cast their die into the winds of change. songs and images tossed at the aerial witness of perpetually new dawns.
until the new dawn never came. billboard faces came however and melted into screens. every household room multiplied. their smiles and their slogans reverberated ad nauseam. there were hopes. there were tomorrows. all based on principles of well being and prosperity, health and riches for all. masses moved toward this magnet of dream. they came ashore to the land of plenty from all corners of the globe, shipwrecked on an image, which jangled, stuck in the head.
so why now does the screen flicker ? why do the graphs hurry downwards? wasn't it the best of all possible worlds? the greatest good for the broadest mass of mugs? so why now does the dominant politician stumble as he reaches democracy's pulpit? what does he have trouble hiding now, as discontent mounts? did they prepare him for this at school? did his history lessons tell him what occurs in the heartburn of action? when you have to think without thinking and pay for your decisions forever? what is fear now as it rises along the backbone of your arrogance?
the leaders are seated. their smiles are a deck of cards shuffled and re-shuffled for cameras from carnivorous photographers. ideas and advice, everyone has them but the graphs seem to have a mind of their own and money is having a frightening habit of vanishing when you need it. the more you need the less there is. something is wrong in the central breakdown cortex of the brain. nothing can be built without faltering. no solution holds more than ten minutes and the populations are grumbling. they are throwing units of broken ideas at the camera men on the high street. they are running with stolen goods. they have odd ideas and alternative talk. they are getting suspicious. just when the leader-images needed the masses, it looks like the masses are leaving. all hell broke loose and no one had seen hell for a while. death having been banished and deformity lost in wastelands of dull pain.
what is a million? what is a billion? what is a trillion? how many drills do you need to break a million walls?
my words are anathema to the politician's smile. i was a school with him, the fiend. i could look him in the eye then and spit at his future. now he is protected by the army and the prison-language of hordes of housewives huddled around their newborns.
it is late. it is grey. my overcoat is not enough to keep my warm. my hat my scarf my gloves. every minute is money. food for someone i love. i keep at it. i keep smiling. i am fighting a lonesome fight. i am a slave just like any other. these useless words won't help me. whichever readers there were are too busy watching the graphs, the double dips and the exchange rates. i learnt my lesson long ago. i should have kept quiet. i should have stifled this ludicrous will to sing.
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