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It’s what people do best.

They join a herd.

They become a herd animal. Herds.It’s what people do best.They join a herd.They become a herd animal.



Republican, vegan, suburbanist, Kool Aid-drinking cultist.

Jungian, Rovian, Randian, Blandian.

Atheist, deist, theist, solipsist, nihilist, neo-pissed no-spinalist. Christian, Buddhist, capitalist, socialist, anarchist.Republican, vegan, suburbanist, Kool Aid-drinking cultist.Jungian, Rovian, Randian, Blandian.Atheist, deist, theist, solipsist, nihilist, neo-pissed no-spinalist.



over the stinking, barren, trash-filled plains roam the herds,

indistinguishable when you get far enough away from them. In the end, it’s all the same:over the stinking, barren, trash-filled plains roam the herds,indistinguishable when you get far enough away from them.



Perhaps what I’m really thinking of isn’t herds,

but cogs, or automatons.

A place for everyone, and everyone in his or her place.

Take that butcher knife, bloody to the end of its handle,

and cut, cut, cut out everything—everything!—that makes you different,

that makes you unique.

Do it! Corners won’t do, no!

If you want to eat, you’ll obey.

If you want a roof over your head, you’ll get chopping and hacking and sawing!

If you don’t want to live in isolation, you’ll bow before the great god Corporation.

You’ll do anything to gain its dribbles of crumbs. Anything! Perhaps, though, my chosen imagery isn’t accurate enough.Perhaps what I’m really thinking of isn’t herds,but cogs, or automatons.A place for everyone, and everyone in his or her place.Take that butcher knife, bloody to the end of its handle,and cut, cut, cut out everything—everything!—that makes you different,that makes you unique.Do it! Corners won’t do, no!If you want to eat, you’ll obey.If you want a roof over your head, you’ll get chopping and hacking and sawing!If you don’t want to live in isolation, you’ll bow before the great god Corporation.You’ll do anything to gain its dribbles of crumbs. Anything!





❧







I can’t do what you want.

I can’t believe as you do.

I can’t think as you do.

It’s poison. The understanding of days is this:I can’t do what you want.I can’t believe as you do.I can’tas you do.It’s poison.



There is absence in your eyes.

Your colon clenches.

I can hear it from here. There is tightness in your gait.There is absence in your eyes.Your colon clenches.I can hear it from here.

You’ve got your children packaged so neatly

you could display them on a shelf.

They look like all the other children.

You’re doing a great job killing their souls.

It’s time to speed home, and curse at those too busy

taking in the grandeur that you’re too important to give attention to.

It’s time to flip open that cell phone with purpose and drive.

It’s time to unclench that colon enough to let the coal drop.

It was food once. But you couldn’t even tell what it was you ate.

It might just as well have been shit.





❧







the crushing weight of empty years, the hot, lifeless breeze,

endless days in a lonesome fog, cash gone, eviction notices and betrayal thick as

syrup, Past the raking of flesh and dumb inertia,the crushing weight of empty years, the hot, lifeless breeze,endless days in a lonesome fog, cash gone, eviction notices and betrayal thick assyrup,



the solace in a surprisingly sure heart, past the apathy, the apathy, the apathy … Past the singular belief in a project, the words, the images,the solace in a surprisingly sure heart, past the apathy, the apathy, the apathy …



the impinged shoulders and racing heart, Past the abuse and narcissism and selfishness, the dust gathering in the corner,the impinged shoulders and racing heart,



all, past all of it, there was still me. Past unforgiving daylight and clenching nights that could promise only a brief respite from itall, past all of it, there was still me.





❧











~~*~~

Do so, however, and you can count yourself among the dead.It doesn’t matter if you are still breathing, if you have a heartbeat.There’s nothing left of you worth calling you.Don’t agree?That’s okay.Ignore this bit of free verse and get back to work for your bloated taskmasters.After all, they represent all that’s left to you and of you.Too often the “great” are called so out of the cesspool’s need and no other reason. How they got that way isn’t questioned. To the cesspool, “great” is amoral. It is nothing more than one’s seismic significance to the subsurface turds. A great good and a great evil deserve the same attention, the same worshipfulness, the same veneration, the same press, the same coverage, the same fame. It’s the seismic reading that counts, not the merits of one’s deeds, one’s contributions, one’s psychosis or one’s penchant for mass murder. Virtue, or the lack of it, doesn’t count in the final tally.But for those with eyes to see, great goodness and great evil are measured by completely different means. For true goodnessgreatness, and can only come about through individuals, through their vision and determination, their persistence and optimism, their virtue and prudence, their shunning of fame and glory. They have no need of followers or devotees or the applause of the burbling shit; they require no holy sanction; and they disdain the blessings of the wealthy and powerful. True goodness stands alone.Great evil, on the other hand, can only come about through the consent, silent or otherwise, of the mass of turds, rich and powerful or not. It cannot survive otherwise. The turds spawn evil. It may have its genesis in a single person, that is true. But there it will surely die without the obeisance of all the shit who adopt it and raise it and shower upon it the cheap imitation of love they have substituted for the authentic kind, but which frighten and anger them, for true love, like true goodness, requires courage of spirit, and can be found only in very few.The shit spew and spit their spreading evil as good; and with it they rape the countryside and climate and commonweal; they eviscerate the dignity of others who oppose them; and, eventually, they destroy what’s left of their souls, if souls they have by that point. They’ll select an unimpressive and mundane individual to represent their evil, and they’ll build him palaces and statues and conquering armies and revisionist constitutions and riches beyond measure.Great good is bred and borne in and by individuals. Great evil is, and will be always, corporate.