Post by Wolf on Feb 27, 2004 17:35:38 GMT -5
Author's note: This poem was the first poem I had written in nearly 14 years - and it was written as my marriage of 20 years entered the final stages of collapse The poem is a reflection on the outer world of the turmoil, cynicism, shattered hopes, and pain of my inner world...
Broken Dreams
...To "Civilization"
Dark warrens of stone, concrete, glass, metal, plastic, wood
comprising myriad cages that imprison, limit, stifle...
...cages that the inhabitants all too willingly and blindly enter...
...cages entrapping not only the body, but also the mind and soul...
Cages dank with the fetid odors of massed humanity...
...a humanity blind to its own sufferings,
sacrificing its soul to progress,
blindly climbing the social ladder,
mindlessly acquiring the objects of status...
...crushing those who are perceived as blocking the ever-moving goals
they set in their search for peace, for happiness...
...seeking that serenity in the artificial constructs
of their own twisted dreams...
The masses stream within the bleak canyons of steel and neon,
fringed by the bleak artificial forest of chrome and glass towers...
some faces are outwardly, blankly smiling or serene... others,
twisted with internal agonies of defeat and despair...
...all hustling, all pursuing the Ultimate Goal of success, each
with a different goal, each with a different dream, yet all the same...
...all their dreams are but variations of a theme, a man-made goal, flawed:
for once attained, there is always more to possess, yet another dream
to pursue...
The bleak concrete and asphalt of the man-made forests and canyons,
the pathetic imitation of nature, a steel forest of twisted dreams,
swarms with the mindless masses who seek within the symbols of their
endless pursuit of success... eyes and minds seeing only the
artificial world... souls bombarded by an overload of sensory
input... buy, sell, live for today...
...souls overloaded and programmed for self-destruction in the
search for pleasure, satisfaction... not handsome enough, pretty
enough, thin enough, sexy enough... and the goal ever moves, the
poisons sink deeper... spreading beyond the artificial world
to contaminate all...
In the back alleys and dark recesses lurk the broken dreams
and shattered hulks of the masses, broken in their own pursuit
of reason and life, or broken in turn by the pursuit of others...
...blindly trampled into the dust by those stronger, those with
greater skill; lesser predators mangled and discarded by
the greater...
...bitter, they turn inward... and live twisted versions of the
dreams they failed to achieve... bodies and minds broken mingle with
the mindless streaming masses, seeking comfort, surcease, peace...
and receive here and there a token recognition... a quarter for coffee,
mister? A dollar for booze? twenty-five for a quickie?
...the mindless masses step over and around the broken shells
huddled in the doorways and alleys; the masses look through without
seeing the bodies riddled with illness and pain, the souls tormented
by pains and memories beyond comprehension...
...oh yes, the token is oft given, but in the giving is loathing,
rejection, willful blindness... the alms-givers see the mirror,
the reflection of what lies within their own dark souls...
...the recognition is there, and abhorred, feared, rejected...
...and ruthlessly, brutally suppressed... if not seen, it doesn't
exist... if not acknowledged, it can't happen...
and the poisons spread deep within
the bleak artificial forests of mankind...
© T. GhostWolf Davidson, February 18, 1994
