Fly bird, fly as you are able,
Rise above this lethal turf
Where shots are fired, insults hurtled,
Where the terrible and tumultuous noise
Mutes the ear to your sweet and melodious warble.
Upstairs they are debating
Which apocalypse will be the first to bring us down,
Which tyrant will be the next to jerk us up,
Carry us off to foreign lands,
Shanghaied for the building of pyramids and power-plants.
I have come to realize
That all of my words may be scribed in vain.
Yet another generation may be lost to constant nausea
And migraine headaches,
Whole societies infected by their own communal consent.
Entire nations oblivious to their self-inflicted fate,
Eagerly lapping at the sour milk of ignorance.
It would be better to sniff bay leaves
Or eat rose petals, than do nothing, I surmise.
Better to break bread and drink wine.
Better to flirt with thesaurus and dictionary,
Your sister’s best friend or disastrous situations.
Better yet, to chill the fevered mind,
Paint a picture, write a song
Better this,
Than cue the hand to idle masturbation.
This being yet another symptom of the
Viral epidemic directly linked to the feet-dragging,
Unimaginative, conservative-based, politically-driven
Morass known as purposeful procrastination.
The question, to be sure,
Is it the disease that’s killing us or is it the cure?
We would do better to redefine ourselves,
To see ourselves
As some benign pretender to the throne,
Some incorruptible presidential candidate,
Some uncharacteristically upstanding C.E.O.
I’m just sayin’
Mary Jane wants to be our next best medical salvation,
With fanciful excursions to exotic places,
Searches for buried treasures and space stations,
Visions of dense, wild vine-tangled jungles
And cloud-shrouded mountain tops.
We all might sleep easier in a more natural state.
We need to be free to ingest the oft-elusive bud of love,
With its sickly-sweet scent of belonging,
Its sticky-finger feel of security,
And a healthy hint of social camaraderie.
And though I know the futility
Of staying well on this planet,
I want to believe.
I truly want to believe that life is for the living!
To convey, however, is not necessarily to convince.
And all the while, this rampant dis-ease eats us alive.
And there seems no way to put an end to it.
Perhaps in times past
Leeches would have sucked this venom out.
Now the jar is filled with pills
And we are told that we should be aware
Of the many possible side effects.
I fear we are too late to save the masses. For the blissfully ignorant are many, while those willing to learn are so very few.
We can only hope that words we scribe will reach the future generations and finally become the wake-up call we hoped they'd be.
Medicine for the planet. Bravo! You have thoroughly covered our ills and our futile efforts to postpone the inevitable death. The vicarious ways that we escape our fate and the ignorant foibles that beset us.
Fortunately, most are too busy living their lives like these in some hive, grabbing onto every medical lifeboat that comes along, whether it be a hurried vacation, a wonder drug, or a trip to the casino to even notice. Totally unaware of how they are being manipulated by the powers that be while human progress drags its feet on the way to our destruction.
Mike, this is a very tantalizing piece, asking and never quite answering the question of dis-ease. What does it mean to "be?" To live the life of an individual in the midst of community....in the midst of a nation that seems hell-bent on screwing herself? Good poetic thoughts!
You covered a tremendous amount of living and groveling and blood, guts, and Mary Jane dancing on the tabletop of the newest miracle drug. Yep, all of that you sorta touched on, but still . . . you were serious almost to a fault, because you and I both know our words make not a crack into the stupidity of a world gone insane. Me? I have given up on writing about political issues. Oh, there was a time though I burnt the keyboard up. No mas . . . No mas . . .
A people’s heart can be found in their poetic words. In history men and women have stood firmly upon their soapboxes and street corners, rallying the deepest beliefs of people to rise up and be heard. The poetrypages.com has offered that voice a new
Robin Ouzman Hislop's poetry is certainly in dialogue with some of the key architects of the 'poetics of indeterminacy' – both the Modernist strands represented by the likes of Beckett and Stein, and the postmodernist strands represented, initially,
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We can only hope that words we scribe will reach the future generations and finally become the wake-up call we hoped they'd be.
Fortunately, most are too busy living their lives like these in some hive, grabbing onto every medical lifeboat that comes along, whether it be a hurried vacation, a wonder drug, or a trip to the casino to even notice. Totally unaware of how they are being manipulated by the powers that be while human progress drags its feet on the way to our destruction.
Ron
Peace,
Dayvid