Taking Stock
Taking stock,
in a state of shock,
the mind grumbles,
the stomach rumbles
the voice mumbles.
I can feel my life
slipping away, I can
feel time pressing
upon me like some
fetid breeze,
I can see the leaves
wither and fall
from the trees.
Taking stock,
in a state of shock.
Casting for remedies
when the only disease
is the modern way
of lying that results
in children crying,
and old men being
blown to bits.
Enough to give me fits.
Shock therapy, stock
remedies, passing fancies,
drastic declines in the
national elan vital,
I feel it slipping away,
life, like broken clods of
earth between your toes,
like clots of blood
staining your fingers.
Taking stock,
state of shock.
Renegade rumors,
like petulant tumors,
infect the body politic,
enough to make you sick.
Pushing the message,
spinning the spin,
shaking the stick,
general dementia
from eating the placenta
of stillborn dreams,
sociopathic schemes.
Words dance and duck,
sonnets bob and weave,
graceless, faceless,
shameless charlatans.
Call in a lawyer, get me
a quack, perform radical
surgery to quench
that beam of light
lest it shed truth
about the cursed ones,
lest it shed a measure of
hope for the unnursed ones,
those failing and falling
in the merciless streets,
the undrunk, the
unalive, the unaware,
stumbling down the bouelvard,
Beware, it could be
you tomorrow,
when it's them today.
Taking stock,
in a state of shock.
Nuclear dummies,
Bush and Rummy
and Ashcan John,
Shitcan 'em now,
each and every one.
Government of thieves,
bigots and clowns,
kicking us
when we're down.
Synapses in relapses,
prolix prolific eruptions,
Vesuvius of verbs,
adverbs, adjectives
and all their pals,
pronouns and
pronouncements,
elections
and defections
defecations and
public relations.
It's all a capitalist
plot to hex you and
hoax you, vex you,
and brother that's
all you've got.
Taking stock,
it's a state of shock.
---Jack Oakes
9-17-03 |
