And we stand still,
Seemingly unmoved by it all.
And we stand still,
Force the broken rubble together,
To the crimson clay and gray maggots we leave our breathing,
Feet stuck down in the red earth.
Do we know what it is that we have done?
Forgive me... We know not...
Writhing limbs beneath the ground
Unmoved of the dulled shanking sorrow
Broken by the distant flow of murder
Dejected of all the slighted affections
Replaced by a programmable worry
Struck anesthetized of bone-shrieking pain
Vanished by the good God damned dash
Pushed back to the very dread filled end
Trampled flat by the gush of skin
Stopped short of inhaling lethal shame
Turned off from what’s not the same
Blinded by the inundation of labor
Wrought immobile by the last quaver
Succumbed to hunger and greed
Paled of piercing a blood-red deed
Do we know what it is that we have done?
Forgive me... We know not...
O the flesh and bone and blood, and blood and blood-
Murderous days and nights
Of the world’s child
By our conscious monstrousness!
Again and again, without moving,
Planted there in the earth!
We are living and breathing
Yet we might as well die away,
Pass on down, end, vanish, fade...
Who could possibly want what we have;
Freedom with feet wedged beneath the ground,
God without a miserable mince of goodness,
Equality with white-faced conditions?
Hope is a four letter word.
Writhing limbs beneath the ground.
What? What? What? Goddamnit! What?
We’re not alive, at least not our senses; reality.
Why not place our bodies entirely under
If we’re just going to stand so unhappily silent?
Surely we’ve nothing worth continuing for,
Surely we’d be better off if we sunk complete,
Better than remaining red-faced, horrifyingly immobile
With no weight to bear from such empty spirits...
© 2008 mrp/tpm
