The Races

The Races 

  

There’s misery in many forms – and happiness is found
in many things in many ways by you and I and more.
But let me speak awhile of woe that’s come from speeding up
and of the joy that once was here, when most were moving slow.

For Mammon wants us each to work and also spend our wages
at faster rates and more and more, expending all we've earned,
and then He wants the ant disposed before it ails and ages.
So each of us should swiftly then be buried or be burned…

For both in labor and in payments, humans serve their lords,
the ones that now we bow to, who are seated on their thrones.
So most of us are racing at our work and through our lives,
for he or she who doesn't, soon, in poverty, atones…

The more we work, the more it is that profits large are gathered.
The faster that we do it, the faster profits grow.
The more that we are spending, the more the stocks that rise.
And who can dare to posit, that all of these should slow?

But see, what all that speeding up has done to humans ‘round –
the illnesses of body, mind that also grow at speed,
the madness in the zones of peace, the madder zones of war –
and ask, “Is this what humans want or what they truly need?”

And those of conscience suffer most, while those with fewer qualms
can still survive and flourish.   So our breeds are still evolving
to be of better service to our masters, as we race
upon the treadmills that, at speed, are always now revolving.

    


The artisans have gone their way; the workers took their places.
And then the robots came – and those, that slaved before, displaced…
The quieter joys of life and work are lost in all our races,
and so our satisfactions are, by paychecks, now replaced…

So who has time to be with children, teach them, tell them stories?
And who has time to taste their meals, to savor still their lives –
to slowly walk, to pause to see, to read of woes and glories,
to hold another in their arms and be as husbands, wives?

For humans always knew to race, when moving fast was needed –
in hunting or in fleeing, in the battles of the past.
But we also knew of slowing – and the need for it was heeded,
for there are things we cannot do, when we’re moving fast.
 

 


The work that’s fine, that’s focused, be it that of mind or hand,
the attention that is needed, when we’re learning what is new
or pausing from our schedules to attend to those in need,
were understood to be for all – and not for just a few.

There was a time when most of us were “primitive” indeed.
We then would hunt and gather – and were truly artists each.
Our lives had woes but also joys and flowed as rivulets.
We sang and danced and worked and did our children duly teach.

And no, it was no paradise, but yet we each were free
of masters who could make us work and rob us of our labor.
For we were truly humans then, in all our little clans.
The quiet joys of human lives, we then could truly savor.

 
 



No clock-alarms, no rushing then to work in soulless mills,
not even fields, by brigands owned, to whom we owed their share –
no landlords then to claim their rents, no trace of feudal ills,
no “paradise on earth” and yet – a life that we could bear.

For we had friendships then – and bonds.  We cried at deaths, departures.
We laughed aloud and smiled a lot, we joked and had our fun.
No hospitals or nursing homes – and yet we did our best
to care for those who needed care – until the setting sun.

And those, who first then tilled the land, enjoyed awhile their grain,
and so could settle down and tend to elders and the sick.
But then there came the bandits who became their masters and
who put in place their feeding chains from populations thick.
 

   



So predators can feed off prey, when prey becomes abundant.
So just as men had “tamed” the beasts and set them then to toil,
so also men were tamed in turn, so others then could feed
on all the work that peasants did upon the yielding soil.

And then the cities, then the trades, the ships and factories –
and so the trek towards the towns, to work in dreary mills,
and then the start, towards the end of all that humans had
that can’t be bought.  And so the starts of many present ills.

So having told this history, however poorly, I
would now beseech you to observe and question what you do.
For only when such attitudes are prevalent will we
return perhaps to slower lives – as meant for me and you.

 


For those conditioned by their times – this age of packaging
and those that came before – they rarely pause to question why.
But to survive and to “succeed”, they quickly learn to race,
and so their lives become  a blur.  They never see the lie.

And only when the lies that we are fed, from when we’re born,
are seen for what they are, will men and women start to stop
and question wars of arms and those that now are waged in “peace” –
in all the races that consume our lives, until we drop.
 
2015 March 7th, Sat.
Brooklyn, New York
    

Wars

Wars

An empire, like a fiefdom, feeds
On fear and greed and evil.
There rarely is a shortage of
These victuals of the Devil.

There’s malice in the hearts of men.
It lies there like a snake.
And when the time is opportune,
That serpent does awake.

And many are the stories told,
That feed our pride in nations –
And in our empires too, that grow
Like spreading  infestations.

No empire could have conquered lands
Or lasted, sans this malice.
And though a nation spins its tale,
It’s one that’s fit for Alice.

So neighbor turns on neighbor,
And a brother on his brother.
What one may see as treachery
Is fortune to another.

We covet land, we covet more,
We covet till we die.
And though the simple truth is greed,
It’s covered by the lie.

We're fed the tales that we believe,
Where myth adds spice to fact.
And this concoction, we devour,
And with conviction act.

But there are also bonds that served
Us well, in clans of yore,
And these, by fiefdoms, utilized,
Result in yet more gore.

And humans have a tendency
To worship those with power.
They kick the ones “below”.  To those
“Above”, they bow and cower.

And this perhaps had served for our
Survival.  Yet we see
How it ensures that humans now
As toiling slaves must be.

And all these things I listed that
In human natures are –
They're utilized, in factories –
And in the fields of war.

So every virtue, in its turn,
And surely, every vice,
Is used by those, who’re canny, so’s
To tighten more, the vise.

****** 
  
We kill and die for nations as
We once had done for clans.
Our empires feed on horrors – yet,
Like horror-films, have fans.

Our soldiers march in step towards
Their deaths, in senseless wars,
And yet we justify what isn’t
Just – or blame the stars.

Our armies slaughter thousands in
The lands across the seas.
So terror stalks those ravaged lands,
Where horrors do not cease.
   
When we've unleashed the forces that
Subsist on human malice,
Can we then claim that we are still
As innocent as Alice?
  
And yet we celebrate our selves.
We hail our godly nation.
And we agree to feeding more
Our engines of damnation.

And so it was for empires past
And nations ‘round the world,
Who fought – and fight – in lunacy,
With men in ovens hurled.

And if the ones, who kill and die,
The bitter truth are told,
They still believe the sweetened lie
Which all of us are sold.

For phantasms are what they are –
Our nations, built by men.
And they dissolve when we attempt
Their nature, true, to ken.

For phantasms, we kill and die –
For phantasms and lore.
So was it in the past and so
It is, in blood and gore.

And yet there still are reasons why
The men and women die,
There’s reason why the children wail,
There’s reason for the lie.

And this is what we each must find –
And this takes time and trouble.
It’s only when we see the “why”
That we can prick the bubble.

But know – that those who’re heartless, find,
In every war, a profit.
And though they know on what they feed,
They’re never sickened of it.

As long as men are herded and
To herders, bow and scrape,
So long will they, from factories
And armies, not escape.

But when we men and women serve
No bosses, seek no slaves –
As  equals, then, we all shall make
A people, true, of braves.

When charity replaces more
The malice in our hearts,
Then empires will be starved – and so
Will all their evil arts.

But this will not be what we see
On rising in the morrow.
That dawn must break within ourselves
So we can end this sorrow.

When factories will crumble and
When armies will disband,
Then humans will be humans true –
And walk then hand in hand.

But this again is but a dream,
Until we make it true.
But hark!  You’ll hear the children scream –
Because of me and you.
  
We still have better instincts left
That at such things revolt.
But there are instincts too, that serve
To keep those calls on hold.

For if we try to answer them,
We may ourselves be lost.
How many hear that distant cry
And rise, to bear the cost?
   
For most will say, “Let children scream,
Out there, so far away.”
But when that sound gets nearer, will
We still then turn away?

2014 March 2nd, Sun.
Brooklyn, New York