Something unexpected supervenes.
Interrupts the day, reorganizes
Carefully ordered schedule,
Rearranges blocks of time and
Expectation, elicits an outpouring of
Vituperative discontent.
He worked hard and built up a
Profitable company that hired
Bright young college kids under
The pretense of providing a
Management job.
He worked them as hard as one could
Work people. Most didn’t survive but
The few who did were a good fit for the
Towel snapping and unempathic
Worldview required to hang on.
A cabal of petty,
Unreconstructed hacks
With no experience of
Being discriminated against,
Making sweeping
Discriminatory decisions
Against the unprotected,
Limiting their rights,
Restricting their ability to
Achieve their dreams,
Ignoring heinous past and
Present transgressions.
Inequality institutionalized,
Codified by privileged brutes
Who’ve never had to
See things from
Someone else’s perspective,
Or have some kind of
Strange axe to grind,
Smugly decreeing a
Less compassionate world.
Turn back the clock,
Reverse progress.
Sadism personified,
Culture of barbarism,
Fear, cruelty,
Casual violence.
Self-perpetuating system,
Commend bad behavior,
Promote inhumanity,
Celebrate malice.
Respond to everything
With brutality,
Pledge fealty to
Mercilessness.
No room for debate,
Mind made up beforehand.
Unrelentingly imposed
Hierarchy – a few on top,
Most on the bottom.
Homogeneity of belief,
Indoctrinated from birth,
Perpetuated by self-interested
Megalomaniacs unwilling to
Consider other perspectives,
Their version of the truth
Absolute, indisputable.
Fabricate the doctrine,
Tighten the yoke around
Subservient subjects,
Keep them in the dark,
The malleable uninformed.
Outraged that their longstanding
Position is being challenged,
They scramble out angrily
From their holes,
Attacking anyone
Who doesn’t fit the profile,
Obnoxiously making everything
Worse for everyone,
Terrified of equality.
Cavalierly excuses himself
When she deferentially
Asks for help for her family.
A rigged game dependent on
Her subservience and
Fear of merciless reprisal.
Surviving day to day
On the fringes of a
Community that scorns her,
Demeans her very existence,
Considers her less than a person.
Spoiled starched gentlemen,
Primped wilting ladies,
An air of contrived civility
Masks a ruthless
Disregard for humanity.
Reposing in fortified edifice
Overlooking tattered hovels,
Broken dreams that never
Took flight.
Counting his earnings
From the sweat of
Indentured
Beings.
Surveying his lands,
Faceless toiling peasantry,
Noble tradition reverberating
In the present.
When asked whether
Her book was in stores
Or had won any awards,
She knew she was not
In the presence of
Discerning supporters
But, rather, conventional
Creatures who only measure value
Based on prestige and status
Instead of understanding
The transcendence of her work.
