Infantilizing Adults
by Odin Roark

Like some will-less following
of twisted Pied Piper followers,
a masquerade of fear and anger
a mesmerized populace of bottom feeders
gazing in wonder,
their blinking eyelids in sync with
a frightening number of like mind,
like purpose,
like ignorant,
marching in lock step to the abyss,
inhaling its acrid fog of self-loathing
evil portending more of its infinite reach.

Crestfallen…

The non-critical thinking mind,
with its accompanying lack of focus,
blindness to real freedom
and disregard for social responsibility,
succumbs to delusions of success as an entitlement.

Sadly…

Obvious to any rational being
this weak-willed body of followers,
these walking open wounds of dejection and want,
breathing in duplicitous messages of promise
for their inciteful anger and resentment
may indeed enjoin celebration for the moment,
but remain unconscious to the demagoguery of such tantalization,
succumbing to the harmony they want to hear
even as it crescendos into echoes of chaotic dissonance.

Mercifully…

Not all of humanity is of like mind or like purpose,
as many insist remaining of cogent reasoning.

And still…

The indecisive among us
sit back and wonder
of their own silence of choice,
their continued stifling of tremors obvious,
quashing the urge to object,
addicted to more out-of-tune noise
passing for melodic accompaniment,
even as they smilingly skip down
illusion’s yellow brick road.

The informed…

See an observing world’s glistening ducts
forming tears of quiet pain portending
more pity for trickery masking the face of honesty,
opting instead to follow the fraudulent suit,
tie, and manufactured skin color.

To do-the-right-thing…

Survivalists must hold firm
to sentient rationale and common sense,
believe that tin-soldier-power has always self-destructed,
allowing tenacity of goodness to rebuild life imbued with love,
of lessor repression and exploitation,
if only for confirmation of hope,
brief as it may be.

For the cycle is merciless…

Hiding the price of despotic glad handing,
the playing-of-the-public like a flutist of infinite breath,
the bloviating narrative of unlearned lessons.

Likely…

Gazing in from the curtained wings of the past,
stands Caesar,
Napoleon,
Stalin,
Hitler,
and Mussolini,
drop-jawed at the latest staging,
the latest Pied-Piper-attempt
at infantilizing adults.

Even they must shake their heads in fear.