Startlingly conventional,
Seeking simple answers to
Complex questions,
Ambiguity to be avoided
At all costs.
Aggressive, sneering
At anyone who doesn’t
Agree with him,
Projecting unresolved
Rage on bystanders.
Rigid, uncreative,
Profoundly unfulfilled,
Chasing the rush
That comes from
Following the herd.
The words that can’t
Be said because someone
Said we shouldn’t say them.
The feelings that can’t
Be felt because someone
Said we shouldn’t feel them.
The life we don’t live
Because someone said
We shouldn’t live it.
Walking through a
Large room replete with
Cheery people
Trying a bit too hard.
Slow-motion bubble,
A hapless figurine
Trapped in a snow globe,
Swirling storm.
Each smiling face,
Insecure diatribe,
Reminds him of other places
He could be, the dreams
He unwittingly left behind
When he decided to
Follow the safe path to
Boredom, uniformity.
They eagerly await
The family’s arrival.
How he loves his tousled,
Rambunctious grandchildren.
Looking out the window,
He thinks of his boyhood.
Pain and want become
Wealth and comfort.
Such distant images,
Times never to be relived.
He pauses by his study,
One small bit of business to do.
Distant decisions spawning
Unseen consequences.
Yet another family struggles
To pay the bills.
The opportunity presents itself
To do whatever he wishes,
In any way he wants,
No limits, constraints,
But for conscience.
Chooses exploitation
And lining his pockets
With their misery.
A trajectory foretold by
Ingrained years of pain.
It’s easy and spectacularly
Unrewarding to live steeped in
Superficial understanding and
Suppression of underlying meaning.
Issues pending, dangling,
Perpetually postponed review.
Submerged in disorienting darkness,
Perspective bends under the weight of
Expanding delusion, self-congratulation,
Cinching of possibility,
Imagination stifled by fictional reality,
Robust defense of fabricated truth.
A group of angry people met in a room,
Enraged because the beliefs they so
Readily, joyously, ruthlessly
Imposed on others were no longer
Popular; exposed as petty,
Disingenuous, destructive.
They machinated at length,
What to do about this conundrum.
The solution arrived in a flash of
Inspiration: Keep doing the same
Things that got them here.
A group of angry people stayed
Angry as angry people do.
Surveying the rows of houses,
I am struck by their drab
Sameness, a kind of uniform
Dilapidation rendered stark
By a tepid sun. Inside,
Dreams die by the thousands.
Gregarious and confident
On the outside, trembling
And tentative on the inside.
The sense that he’s never
Really good enough, no matter
How blustery his exterior.
No sense of his utter inability
To connect with anyone on a
Deeper level, as a human being.
Each encounter becomes another
Opportunity to use someone else
To bolster waning self-esteem.
An intransigent cabal
That will not budge
No matter how many people
Live without dignity,
Starve in plain sight,
Wander the streets.
Inconceivably broad swaths
Of society condemned to
Lives of suffering and toil,
Lack of opportunities,
Just to avoid
Upsetting the wealthy.