Mood Blue

 
Mood Blue

There are causes for our problems.
There are problems that we cause.
So the cycles, that we're caught in,
Keep us running, till we pause.

But to pause is to have trouble.
If we question, then we sink.
We are workers and consumers.
We pay taxes. Do we think?

There are channels for our thinking.
To these channels, we're confined.
We are penned and we're addicted.
We have little peace of mind.

******

We are flowing like the water.
We are blowing like the wind.
Yet we like to think we're solids.
That's the reason we have sinned.

Can we write upon the water?
Can we shape and hold the wind?
Did they ask themselves these questions—
Those in Egypt and in Sindh?

In old Mohenjo-daro,
Could they savor breaks from work?
Could the workers too, in Giza,
From the pharaoh's labors shirk?

We can see the woman running,
As she races to her train.
We can see the woman aging
From the stress and from the strain.

*****

And who is it who profits
From this racing, from this work?
If we knew, then we might stop it—
Give the finger to the jerk.

Is it God, up in his penthouse?
Is it Bloomberg, in the skies?
The widow holds the ashes.
The orphan sits and cries.

We have drugs and schools and markets.
We have courts and we have lawyers.
We have banks and corporations
And they need the skillful liars.

There's the blue that lights the heavens.
There's the blue that's in the soul.
There's a time for pause and sadness
That is needed to be whole.

2016 October 30, Sun.
Brooklyn, New York

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