The keys are dropping in the bowl next door,
The street camera lights surveil the neighborhood,
The children are safely possessed by radiation for the night,
And the pharmanaut takes his daily microdose
Like a rat in a labyrinth lab.
There's always news in this brown yellow sadness
Of some volley to come from the other side,
To keep inconsequential the living room shrapnel,
For we all have to work much harder now, for the privilege
Of being a slave, with no system to speak of anymore,
Just fiefdoms of power-mad terror disguised as the thing
That might save us from consensus of death.
I served this world without regret, when it was still a world.
The best escape like cranes into cane-break,
The rest feign ignorance of the lies they profess,
And the most ill-at-ease with the chaos of order
March closest to the front, not because some cold force
Has coerced them, but because that's just the way it is.
The mind, they say, is the only hiding place left,
Though strange hands and gloves send invaders inside
Every orifice, mapping and blocking all exits,
Still, the uncharted impossibilities lie within
To those courageous and sense-deranged enough
To ride the wild current in the desperate hope
Of a story to tell in the end, of how we might,
If we keep dancing at the fountain of colored lights,
Survive this war on humanity, become prophets
Without need of a flock.
