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Why This Life?

                                    Why This Life?

 

 

                        Decommissioning

The seismic quantity

A freefall of ego in denial

Of the truth – the truth the blues

Ran away, struck for cover under a

False note,

            Choked on failing

Fantasies the absurdity of

A perfect life – grows bigger

Every day you fail

The debt collectors those re-

Animators of junk travelled

Fast between the here and now

The here your home the now

The second hand shop,

     A jumble sale of lives

The wives had surely missed,

 

Pissed three days a week

Keeps the meek cheap weak

And steeped in traditions

Continuing the faith of hate

For begging from a generation

Keen to pass on learnt behaviour

Like the hand-me-downs you just

Spent,

            Spending the money on arrears

And tears for all the cemetery

Blessed for lives they never lived.

 

            The disappointment

Mounting for an underclass

Surroundings of gutter press

For shit roll while your lounging

On the thrown,

                        And hip-hop

Saviours who turned from trials

Of life to the colour of the bling

Sing the blues for fools,

                                    Ring the

Rules of old and sit yourself

Humbly in the chair,

                        Watch the

Goggle box and reach,

Reach once more the double

Diamond tip like a chip

Off older blocks, jewellery for

Kidneys sold to pay the rent

            Or collapsed, deflated

Like the ego you once possessed

The one that thought your life be

Blessed but know, it’s not

In being alone that vexes

Hexes, but the sharing

By a wife – a cognitive entity,

A real human being, conforming,

Hoping praying begging throughout

All the fucking shit.

 

            Really know,

In the words of The Who,

You your wife your life your kids,

     “Won’t be fooled again!”

 

 

Michael J Waite 14th March 2009 1819hrs.

◄ A Million Scalps You Took

Sacred Cycles ►

Comments

<Deleted User> (5899)

Sun 15th Mar 2009 18:08

Through this poem you have made me realise I made the right decision tin giving up a dream to try to change society for the better. Thank you, this is amazing!

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Steve Regan

Sun 15th Mar 2009 15:56

A perfect life is, of course, a fantasy for we mere mortals living in a fallen world. But it is the job of poets and poems to philosophize about the flawed nature of being human,.. and always has been. Mike's poem does that very eloquently. We will all get fooled, time and time again, but we must also live in hope. Our lives are better, more poetic, if we continue to live in hope - despite all the shit that comes our way. I particularly liked these lines ...
"Pissed three days a week

Keeps the meek cheap weak"

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Noetic-fret!

Sun 15th Mar 2009 13:42

You're right steve, just a few lazy typo's is all. I was writing fast and furious at the time from trane (?(is that coltrane i wonder)) or perhaps train of thought, glad you like it.
Mike

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garside

Sun 15th Mar 2009 13:23

Hi Mike - really like this poem - it thrusts out from the page and the edges of the blade seem to have been tempered by Mssrs Larkin and Weller : )

LIke Graham i like 'A jumble sale of lives'...it reminds me of the Witsun Weddings - but observed in the 21st C...

curious about this bit Mike -

'For shit roll while your lounging

On the thrown,'

is it you're and not your

and

is it throne rather than thrown?

when i read the poem it suggests throne and you're but I'm not sure if I am missing some hidden level of the work?

steve


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Graham Sherwood

Sat 14th Mar 2009 21:31

Michael, some extremely fine words in this one. A jumble sale of lives.........steeped in traditions is my favourite section. That's the stuff that gets noticed, well done. Graham

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