(2)


No job.  No job.  No job = no money.  No money.  No money.  No money = no luck.  Money = luck.

"You think it's all fun & games, & it's not."

"But I thought you said games is what it was all about."

"Don't be such a smartass."



Fear.  Nausea.  Chaos.

Trapped.

We each of us have our part to play, I guess.  And I guess my part is to be ground under, ground to dust.

"And those who exploit animals for the benefit of humankind, or exploit them even for mere pleasure, they too are simply playing their part."

"Yes – just as I, who raise my voice in protest against that exploitation, play mine."

Nature is amoral.  The lioness brings down the leaping gazelle.  The spider catches the butterfly.  A pack of hyenas attacks a water buffalo.  They run it to the point of exhaustion, run it for hours, many hours, until it stands, head hanging, chest heaving, tongue lolling.  Then slowly, slowly, they move in for the kill . . .

Humans are a part of nature.  What's happening to me is amoral.

The Enlightened Ones on their mountaintop laugh & laugh.  Their laughter is cruel & vicious; when they laugh their faces screw up like the faces of demons.

Suffering causes cruelty.

The suffering are deluded.  What the suffering see is an illusion.  But the ones who laugh, when they look at those who suffer, what is it they see?

From the apartment down below, music.  Chords sounding lightly on a piano, then a woman's voice, high & pure, sweet, slow, sad, forgiving.





*                         *                         *




desperation

_____________________


Desperation:

        now there's a word you can sink your teeth into

Who would've thought it looked like this?

        monkeys in cages hunkered down at the backs of their cages

        shivering in cages

        shrieking in cages every time some white-coated

                lab technician comes by

        to take their blood inject them with drugs

        inoculate them with disease

        push chemicals down their throats

        examine

                their self-inflicted

                        wounds



A man sits in a room

alone/alone

He shares their pain

& is useless/is useless

Animal pain

is useless

in a man/what's a man?

this is not

a man

this

is an animal



Desperation:

        it's a blue ball of flame

        with no place to go

                it's an eye that never closes

                        never sleeps

                        never dreams

                        never closes

                        but burns

                        & burns

                                 like ice











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