My Fool Errands Led Me Here

For so long that false but pervasive urgency molded my perception of how it is and what it should be

I always awaited some trite event which quickly faded off into my incomplete and jumbled blur

At times I thought I was stepping sagely back, but really that was just one more, too hurried task

I strained so long under that pointless stress that I felt empty when I was casually cast off for good

Thought I saved time religiously, but although I never even spent a bit, my account is empty now

Drove thousands of angry and wasted miles between demeaning jobs and dysfunctional homes

Found novel ways to make foolish noise when I should have known to keep to a good silence

Exhausted by the vapid over-stimulation, I convinced myself I had grabbed for all their gusto

My fool errands led me on, time and again, growing older without noticing, almost til the end

I thought I traveled widely but I viewed everything with the same unquestionable beliefs

My lot was insipid variation upon pointless tasks prodded by the greedy, shallow and insecure

Overheated by implanted artificial needs I nosed blindly towards this infinite shared abyss

Their droppings stained me from above as we raced on the same treadmill for canned rewards

Any brief satisfaction was rapidly eroded by the over-hyped flood of the New and Improved

Often in the frenzy I caught short, sideways glances at details I vowed I must later consider

Sometimes I awoke from odd, confusing dreams, and felt thankful to be rapidly re-absorbed

Briefly disconcerted by my elders passing, I was quickly reassured that our lives must go on

I stumbled on after that hazy HappyEverAfter always radiating just beyond my event horizon

I never realized how the endless greedy distractions merely kept me quiet and uncomplaining

Expensively-empty vacations and merchants holidays kept me pedaling furiously in place

I lay in the night vainly craving the hollow diversions they had convinced me were so important

Too willingly did I suffer chronic fools in a synthetic hope of achieving their venal illusions

Slowly I realized I must race ever faster towards goals I clearly had never really specified

But, For Right Now, I always had this to Get Over With and that to Get Out Of The Way

Dutifully, I carted the kids between enriching activities they quickly and indifferently forgot

I envisioned a contemplative future but, sadly, my body wore out and my mind grew confused

Sociopaths set me to useless tasks, seeking only to lend some meaning to their own wasted cycles

Kept in the dark, led by the greedy, I slapped up their Just For Now with my own Quick And Dirty

I repeated their vile catechism of eternal vigilance, always preparing for more savage conflict

Brought back tiny inscrutable nuggets of extra-media clarity from times of sickness or injury

Forced myself to attend to their ever-changing office plumage and corporate sloganeering

Pretended my noisy, gas-powered wreckreation provided a fulfilling and re-invigorating relaxation

Gorged myself into obesity and illness mistaking nervous, gnawing emptiness for real hunger

Left the awful, incomprehensible future to the fuzzy heaven I financed through His Sales Reps

In the end, tried in vain just to stay in the rat race that I thought all along I was striving to escape

Struck finally into deaf silence by the blind truth of an everlastingly colorless and empty void

Accustomed to a total darkness we could only fear the sun

We can find no success greater than our most miserable failure

Death cannot even visit where no life is to be found

Even when none are beautiful we still choose the fairest from them all

Where all are obese, the least heavy is deemed to be quite thin

Our greatest victory always implies their equally agonizing loss

We can be no more uplifted than we have already been debased

If I can love with all my heart so can I hate with all my soul

If there existed no humility neither would we witness excess pride

The deeper my laughter the more rending could be my tears

Without knowing any sorrow, how much joy could we really feel?

Without such sickness they do not appreciate their better health so much

If most are blind, those who see even blurry shapes are deemed true visionaries

If war is our natural state then our peace must still be full of strife

The biggest lies always somehow ring with some tinge of truth

I would not recognize the greedy were I not raised by the generous

Water only satisfies us to the degree of our thirst

They love best the rain those who have been through the entire drought

They will not call out the evil if they do not know the good

To appreciate such a spring as this you must have been here for the winter

The instant of creation ensures an absolute and certain death

Small as we are, we view some among us as true giants

Little satisfaction comes without enduring some long-held desire

If all we ever heard was music, what would we think of this piercing noise?

Accustomed to a total darkness we could only fear the sun

No one knows an old thing if they have never seen the new

One knows not what it means to take if they haven’t been taken from

He does not know he hurts someone if he feels no pain himself

I did not know I had always felt bad until I grew a little better

A different future cannot be crafted should we choose to ignore the past