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Reluctant Recluse

10.12.06

A reluctant recluse glued 

to a television set screen 

blinking neon green 

advertisements advertising:

Toys, 

carpets clean, 

vacations on jet planes, 

fast cars, 

support for the lumbar, 

prime time opportunities 

to voyeuristically 

watch a real-life family 

breathe in virtual reality.

Holed up, 

stuck in this apartment building

far apart from any community

Staring at the ceiling

watching white paint drying,

slowly but surely dying.

Drinking hot tea, cold tea, 

eating unnecessarily-

Appetite shrinking, waistline growing

soon the weather will start snowing, 

Currently the wind is blowing 

outside of this looking glass.

Bus pass, Metro Card, 

busy bees, buzzing cars 

barreling down the Boulevard;

Locked up inside these molds

growing old becoming calloused and cold.

Holed up, 

like a soldier in a bunker 

remembering days younger, 

tasting a hunger for freedom,

An escape from the chains, 

from the activities, the obligations, 

the priorities, the promises previously 

made that become more and more mundane 

past the point of torture-

When’s the last time you witnessed nature 

at leisure, soaked up sun rays, 

heard children laugh and play, 

got your hands wet with clay 

on a potters wheel?-

No. Everyday it’s the same colour of gray, 

the same machines, the steel, the industry, 

the loud streets, the crowded alleys, 

these buildings scraping the sky

Until clouded eyes cry in pain 

tears of acid rain

that tumble down 

to the ground 

Through the atmosphere in sheets 

leaving droplets of toxic precipitation 

to further pollute this destitute situation;

Killing insects, life forms aquatic, 

reeking havoc costly with caustic steam 

searing nostril hair.

Dirty underwear resting in the gutter, 

how did they get there?

A bottle of used lube, 

a broken condom, dried spittle,

a pink Lifestyle package 

lying alongside two little 

pink children’s shoes-

Ink black and blue 

bleeds over the sheets 

of notebooks numerous 

from ball point and felt tip 

pens countless.

It gets harder and harder to barter: 

everything costs money green and unclean.

To die a martyr 

would be to live out a fantasy 

devout and devoid of an American 

Dream diseased-

At night do you even sleep?

do you weep?

Rather tired, most exhausted and hazy, 

are you kept awake by the sounds of train 

tires screeching in subway terminals-

Terminally ill, 

possessed by a memory you cannot kill

distressed by what you can’t see but only feel- 

Are these images imaginary or real?

The busses are in the depots,

the Churches, the Steeples, 

all these unhappy, un-shining people

Walking hurriedly to wait 

for stoplights to turn green,

To sit behind desks- dollar signs replacing irises,

trying not to fall into the arms of lethargy

Torn between torpidity 

and an artificial state of awake, 

that cocaine feeling of well being.

All these things have no meaning, do they?

Buying, selling, dealing, backstabbing

dollars and cents, cash, checks, change-

Paying for a way to break these restraints, 

wage a way out of your fate,

to break the blinding bindings 

of your enslavement. 

Feet smack the pavement 

not minding the cracks- 

your mother broke her back years ago 

carrying the weight of her past 

from farm to table, 

Milking the economy in this crazy stable 

for a source of stability, 

A sense of security in this society 

so confusing.

Are you abusing your privilege, 

using your lineage to the best of its advantage?

Mr. President sits behind his Government 

noble-like in an oval office 

Twiddling thumbs, picking at crumbs, 

dropping bombs very calmly 

upon crumbling civilizations 

he holds in his pale palms. 

Antithesis of Saint, opposite of savior,

dead ringer for embodied evil, 

nefarious incarnate, this incubus 

renders rainforests desolate, 

plentiful jungles bare- 

Do you ever wonder if he wonders 

if he is living a nightmare?

From that chair 

does the word fair 

ever pop into his mind, 

Behind his eyes, 

underneath his receding silver hair-line,

does he ever compare his air; 

liken his sentiment to the owner 

of a Goose Golden?

Trying to get rich 

at all costs filthy- 

Wrapping the noose 

snare around the neck of humanity.

The stain of Cain 

can be seen written on the widening 

walls of this penitentiary,

Bleeding down halls harrowing 

of the infirmary,

Echoing from below

through these laughing throats

swallowing irony and choking on hypocrisy.

Tyrants and Big Ten corporate conglomerates 

hide behind theology, social experiments, 

biased studies, and infinite idiosyncrasies

While fastidious Fascists sing 

obnoxiously announcing the ostentatious, 

ostensible truth of their theories ringing-

Can you hear the missiles launching, 

the explosions resonating, the fired shots 

sounding off?

Droves of clones 

scurry hurry across these blocks, 

shuffle down the uptown sidewalks caught 

up in the hustle and bustle of the city 

walking in and out of shops, consuming.

A heart is bleeding out in the woods 

acid tripping, munching mushrooms-

We found God in a dorm room, 

atop a tarnished spoon, 

and we put him in a box;

The future is seen lucidly 

at the peak of a hallucinogenic journey. 

Rub the stomach of a tea pot, 

a hash pipe, ask the Genie inside

If your first wish can be 

to not need a wish at all.

Guts drenched in alcohol, 

huts lit and ripped to shreds, 

A thousand brown heads entrenched 

in a crudely fashioned mass grave.

Definitely not brave- 

We are scared, 

we are scarred, 

Are we there yet?

They ask over and over again 

driving alongside Highway I-10 

towards a concept not a destination. 

Trapped inside, shut off behind 

the painted metal of an automobile-

Circumscribed by these bricks, 

this wood, in this tenement, 

on this street, in this neighbourhood

Sealed in safely 

from the crazed 

ordeal that is society. 

Anything can start resembling

a noose if you view it too closely-

....Reluctantly the recluse

turns off lights and closes blinds.

New York City