Expending an inordinate,
Excruciating amount of
Effort, he was able to
Mistrust and vilify people
Whose sole trespass was to
Live compassionately,
Peacefully, harmoniously.
The gall of these
Interlopers, vying for
Turf, position,
Raze relations, raise a
Wall of concrete reinforced.
Clean up on the outside.
Some look forward,
Others retract.
It doesn’t go as expected,
Not that he had grand ideas
About how things would
Turn out, but it could
Definitely have gone
Better, now dealing with
A disconcerting sense of what
Might have been rather than
What actually resulted and
Must now be assimilated,
There being no other choice.
One by one,
Often in groups,
They emerge and
No one says anything.
Some day in the
Future, when sanity and
Perspective return,
People will look
Back in disbelief at
How human beings could
Let it happen
Yet again.
A particular moment,
A decision made to
Move in a direction
Resisted until now.
An imperceptible shift,
Change of course,
Unrestrained, unfettered,
Unemotional, unopen.
Each action builds the moat,
A long swim in an industrially
Tainted pool left for dead,
Lasting an eternity.
He throws his entire
History, and that of
People like him, into
The abyss because
His compulsion to please his
Oppressors is stronger
Than his ability to
Fight for decency.
Late at night,
When it’s too quiet to
Ignore his misgivings,
Unpleasant thoughts
Permeating his spirit,
He fights back
Tears of rage,
Permanently suppressed.
Furthering the aims
Of persecutors who could
Not care less for him,
Or anyone vaguely
Resembling him,
To be discarded like
Rubbish when he’s
No longer useful.
Sneaking in with more than
A little help from his cronies,
He proceeds to destroy
Everything in sight,
Glorifying stupidity,
Exalting anti-intellectualism,
Wrecking the most basic
Of institutions, replacing them
With phony facades,
Watching with glee as the
Lemmings jump off the cliff,
Retiring to enjoy a
Lavish lifestyle funded by
The blood of many locked away in
Offshore bank accounts,
Not a care in the world.
A man self-made through the
Uncompensated toil of countless
Beings, mistreated, unconsidered,
Property in a ledger.
Affluence and individuality wrapped
In a banner of civility and tradition.
Hushed voices in ramshackle surroundings
Document a different story.
Proud, self-sufficient, bearer of
The standard, the vulnerable are
Expended, fortifying social standing,
Fueling savage prosperity.
A young man offered his being,
His vulnerable, exposed essence,
Pure, unadulterated by adult
Adulterators adulating duty.
His gift was considered for
Less than a millisecond and
Replaced by stringent rules of
Decorum and convoluted honor,
An imposition of boot on face.
Succumb to the tide as it draws
You beneath the waves.
An ugly smile announces
The bully, who indifferently
Smears his unformed,
Unexamined nastiness
On every surface,
Forcing the worthwhile to their
Knees, savaging the
Nuanced and vulnerable,
A loud surge of cacophonous
Stupidity wrapped in a
Business suit, playing
The victim when reason
Exposes his hypocrisy.
