The Itch
by Odin Roark

It felt things coming,
The undeniable bottom feeder reality,
Where thought had no credulity,
Where irrational emoting ruled,
Void of mind’s prep,
Blind of light’s revealing purpose.

Such remained
This well rehearsed and produced
Pulp life infestation.

It remembered…

Once many clambered to the marble steps,
Where dreams born of teachings
Promised delivery of reward.
But today,
All that is found
Is perpetuation of schoolyard practices,
Where bullying,
Mocking,
And “my dick is bigger than your dick” war-cries
Intimidate life’s playground with slippery slopes.

Down 5th Avenue,
Up Park Avenue,
The viral contaminants parlay their wears,
A far more contagious disease than Ebola.

And it knows…

Unlike a possible cure for a biological virus,
This consumerism equation seems without solution,
Given little of non-material worth remains
Visible on the species’ blackboard mess.

Today’s squirming parade of absence
Is dominated by the pounding of urban-warrior chests,
Of Armani jackets atop unlaced “made-to-look-raunchy” boots,
Courting the strut of Barbie Doll dreams
Clicking attention with stiletto heels
Beneath ripped shorter than short-short insecurity.

On it spreads,
Past the Wall Street reviewing stands,
Where unlike the fickle nature of society’s infection,
Market makers understand a fever’s ups and downs,
Vulnerability’s capricious norm endorsing today’s
Debauchery fashion to trump taste,
Loudness to drown out worthy music,
Shock to shatter the true awe of discovery,
And excellence to continue its desperate clinging,
As mediocrity’s narcissistic sell-off
Creates another closing-bell windfall.

The pestilence holds firm its lock on discernment’s immune system,
Mutating daily into a mind-shrinking captivity,
A synaptic virulence rapidly rendering this once simple discomfort
Into a rapacious itch that will never realize a cure.