the idea machine
the wires are coming,
the electrodes are humming,
connecting a population
of non-thinkers to the idea machine,
it’s the educationists dream,
thousands of born individuals
forced into a collective brain drain,
it’s a subservient schooling system
where facts are obscured
buried under the upheaval
of abusive discipline
“listen to what you’re told,
don’t question anything”,
I feel like a dying fish,
hooked through the lip,
dragged through the system
then hung out to season,
I can’t locate my vocation
through the wave of mass persuasion,
I want to remain who I am,
I don’t wish to be programmed,
the illusion of knowledge
that we’re taught in college
doesn’t hold weight outside
the school gate,
the wires are coming,
the electrodes are humming,
all and one are the same
plugged into the central mainframe
connecting a population
of non-thinkers to the idea machine,
it’s an educationists dream,
born individuals
forced into a collective brain drain
corpse
it’s the same day as yesterday,
it’s the same yesterday as tomorrow,
I’m locked in this prison
bound,
tied
and shackled to the same mistakes
I’ve made a thousand times before,
what am I here for?
behind my eyes there’s a war,
I need a fixation to take the stench
out of this decomposition,
life has become a stagnant stale corpse,
there is no harmony only discourse,
it doesn’t matter what you’re told
it makes no difference what you’re taught
some of us just drag a corpse
around with us all our lives
looking for a place to hide it
hoping nobody ever finds it
pieces of me
pieces of me, dismembered memories
caged, a dancing bear I can’t set free,
the years have scattered me
upon the pages of another man’s story,
wide spread, lost in the Midwest, chapter by chapter
remains locked, I hate writers block
I remember the silos, star gazing in El Paso,
laying on my back on the dirt track
a highway leading to the great eternal ‘nowhere’,
destinations are simply shortfalls,
you can walk or get on your knees
and crawl,
we all end up somewhere
I’m just trying to deconstruct it all,
my landscape’s littered with thousands of restless wants
I can’t end up broken,
washed up upon these rocks,
I’m out of here as soon as I can break these locks,
pieces of me have splintered pieces of you,
neither of us are wounded,
these dismembered memories
will fix themselves with time,
I remember clearing the state line into Canada,
I’ve felt so much but seen so little
I’m yet to touch a love so brittle
as the night we shared a decade or so ago,
you kept pieces of me in Buffalo,
hold them tight, don’t let them go,
if I never return
take them to El Paso
bury them by the silos,
go lay on your back
on the dirt track
re-tread and map the journey
that splintered pieces of me
in your memory,
pieces of me and pieces of you,
caged, a dancing bear I can’t set free,
the years have scattered me
upon the pages of another man’s story
