Dinosauria, We

Born like this,
into this.
As the chalk faces smile,
as Mrs. Death laughs,
as the elevators break,
as political landscapes dissolve,
as the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree,
as the oily fish spit out their oily prey,
as the sun is masked.

We are
born like this,
into this.
Into these carefully mad wars,
into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness,
into bars where people no longer speak to each other,
into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings.

Born into this,
into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die,
into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty,
into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed,
into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes.

Born into this,
walking and living through this.
Dying because of this,
muted because of this,
castrated,
debauched,
disinherited,
because of this.
Fooled by this,
used by this,
pissed on by this,
made crazy and sick by this,
made violent,
made inhuman
by this.

The heart is blackened,
the fingers reach for the throat,
the gun,
the knife,
the bomb,
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god.
The fingers reach for the bottle,
the pill,
the powder.

We are born into this sorrowful deadliness,
we are born into a government 60 years in debt.
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
and the banks will burn.
Money will be useless,
there will be open and unpunished murder in the streets,
it will be guns and roving mobs,
land will be useless,
food will become a diminishing return,
nuclear power will be taken over by the many
explosions will continually shake the earth
radiated robot men will stalk each other
the rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground.

The sun will not be seen and it will always be night.
Trees will die,
all vegetation will die,
radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men,
the sea will be poisoned,
the lakes and rivers will vanish,
rain will be the new gold.

The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind,
the last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases...
and the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition,
the petering out of supplies,
the natural effect of general decay.

And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard,
born out of that.

The sun still hidden there,
awaiting the next chapter.





Charles Bukowski.