Chameleon Battlescapes
by Odin Roark

Upon a chameleon battlescape,
the ubiquitous “screen” presents
disguises merging with Life’s tree so seamlessly,
truth’s existence risks being unnoticed.

Following behind the invasive campaign,
the innocent dedicate their no-rank serfdom to the digital power,
whose harlequin façades emerge from pastel births
into primary colors ablaze,
burning layered yesterdays
into acrid smoke and ash
of today’s tomorrow.

On trudges the masquerade of time,
where today’s heroine girl,
hero boy,
girl/boy,
Barbie,
Ken,
politician,
evangelist,
freaks and saints
all play out their anomalies,
fearful that normalcy may be indefensible.

Relentless they march,
as innocent they're not,
primping at mirrors,
knowing better,
but denying,
seeing clearer,
but ignoring,
opting for spoils to plunder
jewels to flaunt,
minds to erase.

Unabashedly they propagandize designer-expectations,
projecting delusionary images on floor to ceiling walls,
flat screens,
watch screens,
eyeglass screens,
and the soon to be… implants.

Victimizing sparkling eyes of the naive,
conquerors with flailing platinum hair,
iron-pumped biceps,
enhanced breasts,
and glossy pundit voices,
manipulate resisting consciousness,
charge across the exponential threshold
bent on drowning personal identity with
über-sized powers of wireless persuasion.

Hearts pull asunder
And lives rip apart
as flickering screens of conquest
fit everyone to the a one-mask-fits-all acquiescence.

Global delusion seems to have no end,
leaving behind life's make-believe
as merely another weigh station, another pause,
where like the documenting of clouds,
trees,
births,
deaths
we become additional wrinkles on the face of cosmic chance,
a tributary journey where full-body masks yet to come
will continue to slip and sag
in spite of the obsessive nips and tucks.

Yet…

Survival is a patient principal,
knowing well that as eruptive lava pours,
so too its heat must wane,
allowing time to mete out truth’s destiny
on the chameleon battlescape
of perpetual disguises.