Monday, October 24, 2011

Rieux, rats, and relief

Charge of the crumpled coward
thinly veined forehead crinkling in the foggy stillness 
Sickening lines invading my vision 
splayed in the momentary dance of a frame by frame seizure
Paralyzed with unidentifiable shock - jarring alien poison 
Clouds of wispy pain and solidifying madness 
Impinge constantly: delirious, I stumble in tune
In step and in concert with the mundane rhythm 
The reason of the regular, the structure of the standard
Trembling in normality, humming odes to familiar stagnancy
The appearance of verisimilitude in all things 
All truths and all time-tested, honored facts
shackled to the back of our necks with tightly wound chicken wire
Fencing that prevents due exploration 
Hemming that draws in curiosity and side checks peculiarity
In an instant I see fields of chained would-be's 
Would-be philosophers, would-be wizened men 
Would-be kingly prefects, would-be enlightened teachers
Crushed by the immovable, immutable chain link self-imposition 
The birth right proposition: humans are destined to waver
between minimal success and abject failure 
We accept it -  first coldly, later comfortably 
Our crux, our center, our single source of warmth
A reassuring nod from the giant of Bad Faith
In shouldering every parcel we deliver no substance
Behemoths of all; worms of none 
Starving, rambling, pitched tent war hawks
Flinging wine in celebratory feats 
Bounding through cloying fields, sap thickening 
between our jellied toes
Who will save the heroes 
When the last bit of awareness
Is sheltered within cowardice 

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