Aggressive Apathy

There are lessons being learned

in London tonight that neither Adam

Smith or Karl Marx prepared us

for.  And lessons are a thing without

grace or humor or

sedatives.  And it will be publically denounced,

 

the riots, as some youth experiment

gone awry, some angry gangs

(since loner won’t work), some cautionary

tale on minority entitlement.

The one-sided missive will be

in print, in your face

today and tomorrow and to when it loses interest

when the water-canons open up

and the gangs have lost the fire to put out the water

and go into hiding, back where they came from the cracked wall

public housing, the welfare entitled to them from grandfathers

who fought for you (and you for them?)

we will see who

believes.  The Molotov

Cocktail that smashes the window

And sets alight the floorboards

so tonight I may see

the animal boy

with no agenda no endgame

but to tantrum

as a diamond-ringed woman

looks over the bull’s balls on a menu

somewhere in Montana.

China is increasing its baby food demand by twenty-one percent.

 

I like my supermarkets to stay open.

I like my electricity to work.

I tolerate tea baggers patronizing places like “The Anvil”

where they can talk about UFOs and Jesus

and the stupid race we are

bashing down its own walls

the bureaucracy that ideology beheads

the light under our asses, in our holes

everythingterrifying

and the only thing

that matters, bends us over

in sympathy like the incestuous uncle

whose inheritance we will never see

like a Fitzgerald novel we torment ourselves in

again and again.

 

But that is London.

 

Our grandfathers did things they never told us about

to get into and through

the depression, and here we are

complaining about bankruptcy

and spoiled promise.  America

is in the steel bolts of skyscrapers

and the grease of classic cars.  Our

bitching is a disservice to every

ancestor we never liked.  Every

hero we failed.

 

Yet they riot in London.

Not here, in America.

Here, we are too obese with the process of food

to walk up subway steps.

We have enough to eat, even if it comes fast.

We have places to stay even if we haven’t made a payment in two years.

And we look like what’s in magazines.

There is a spell among the poor in America

There is a spell among the poor in America

there is something stirring

burn down the satellite feeds

burn down the mansions of stone walls, of the ones that control your contentment

and squeeze out what you owe them, the “man” we sing songs of

and fear.  Perhaps we would riot under these lines

for something at the end of all the destruction and murder and death and rape and pillaging of the electronic stores for worthless plasma televisions , the ipad between our legs, dripping want, want, WANT

for an endgame that burns out of control

in London

and plays out the hand that we, the masses of desperation

have no hope in taking over anymore. It’s exactly what you want to hear.

And exactly what you won’t do.

1984 came and went but Orwell

got it wrong

they don’t need to watch over us without us knowing

we give it away freely

for the newest cell phone. We don’t need to be fooled again.

We are the fools everlasting.

 

This is about London,

and here, and the world.

The connections therein and

the xenophobes arrogantly

focusing on borders.

Spare the rod, spoil the child

Spare the rod, spoil the child

We are the spoiled children.

They are rioting in London.

We are the global village.  Beware the global village.

 

-EE