What has not been rendered obsolete
by those who hold the concrete spheres
(the opposite to crystal balls ), those caricature wizards and
magicians who’ve pledged their life to prophecy
and wish fulfilment, yet somehow fallen prey to an array of dense illusions
and appeals that cannot, do not, reach beyond their needs for wealth wealth wealth
and material growth, derisions, pretence — these powerbrokers and players
who preach salvation with one hand and rob you with the other,
they’re everywhere, minding the economy, the politics of the world
we call civilization — these false, shallow preachers, plugging the
cold abysmal holes deep inside them with their warm promises,
their foul plays, their addicted and broken mindsets, junkie souls on junk treadmills,
chasing ghosts, highs, other people’s achievements
and a child’s welfare, chasing anything that will satiate their vampire blood, their thirst for death,
(their only way to live, the death of the innocent — they unleash their snouts and
suck dry the souls of those opening up to them, issuing apologies while doing
their business), agonized, callous creatures, lost inside their porous interiors,
desperate to alleviate their frayed minds from the pain that niggles
at their brains, nibbling on their hearts and souls,
tearing up their childhood dreams, tearing up their precious schemes
and aspirations — along with everyone else’s — tossing everything out
in the grey cold, a frenzy of despair, rushed adulthood, scorn, foul air,
fallacy, folly, these poor influential creatures suffer from it —
they suffer and let suffer; rendered broke, sore and festering,
diseased and incomplete by their own hand, they die slowly, stealthily,
and they don’t realize it. They suspect it, feel it somewhere deep inside,
a visceral knowledge they cannot put into words; unable to
comprehend the process, how their demise is linked
to the people they cheat and undermine.
Eroding like photographs in sunlight, their image fades,
loses resolution, their grip on their affairs loosens, their grasp weakens,
they falter, dizzy, and waste away with surrender, backed up with regret,
a roil of question-marks spills out their eyes and ears like hooks attached
to lines pulled from faraway hands, pulling hard — the slack is over —
a whiteout of pain borne of questions now floods their niggled brains
and eaten-out hearts, their choices catch up with them,
time, errors, catching up with them, all systems compromised,
all but one: the memories of what was lost, what could have been,
so precious, yes, it was; the bittersweet burden of a faded memory
that speaks of a child bursting with hopes and magic,
its soul smooth, solid, not yet compromised, un-shredded,
a child that dreamed of being happy and righteous
and well-placed in the world, well-intended, yet somehow
this poor child found itself on the paved road to hell,
ending up in set, adult, cemented ways far too soon, too alone,
wrapped and coated in conceit, deceit, hushed circumstance, rushed importance
and regret, bubbling regret at not having taken a little more time
to grow up and understand what that meant, how life works. Instead,
the child grew up in a rush, frenzied,
trapped inside an armor of power and mandate,
weeping with rage, going for broke — for broke! —
every detail obsessed over, every stroke applied with care
until there was nothing left to care for, nothing of the child to save,
save a thorny memory pushing its way through a now forgotten,
besotted, waylaid dream; a reminder that somehow, somewhere,
someone abused innocence, tearing apart the shell where the child’s soul
would mature, destroying the substrate of trust so crucial to its development,
snout clicking, sniffing for livelihoods to feast on, to bathe in,
to sustain its tormented, abysmal, ravening purpose