The More Things
Maybe Robin Hood was right. Maybe after you take
stuff away from people something still remains
to give or redistribute, goods or services or human
rights. Maybe there are leftovers lost in Washington,
the place where some kind of empirical stricture rebuilds
its craven image from the moldy junk at the bottom
of God’s closet; the Divine Right of capital and shit
like that. Thine bastard city, with vast gleaming
teeth, alligator tears dripping quietly into the Potomac,
where nothing can’t be sold down the river of dreams.It was the best of the Times, and other newspapers
are making a comeback in the language wars by milking
our little brush with the laws of thermodynamics for all
it’s worth instead of squeezing juicy scandals, squirting pus
from swollen abscesses of corruption—naming no names.
There is no such thing as bad publicity, but a bad public
is another kettle of purulent, reeking feces. Is no news as
good as the information you can buy or manufacture
yourself? Immortality by any means necessary. Escaping
the wide screen for a virtual existence—who did you think
sent you all those weird e-mail messages and wee videos?While America sleeps, your tax dollars continue to work.
Can’t buy my lovely aperture, open 24/7, drive-thru only.
Bearing witness to outrage will not protect you from the
changing political climate. The winter is colder than it seems.
Our electric representatives insulate themselves from the
hazards of public opinion in layers of ice, sleeping locusts
waiting for the next feeding season. In the mind of God,
religions, cultures, civilizations move across continents
like a plague of insects on the march. No one asks an ant
whether it is afraid of Raid® or what it believes.
©2003 F.J. Bergmann"The More Things" appeared in Moebius Vol. 15 #2