A Folklore for My Generation: Late-Stage Capitalism Paranoia
A willow, atop a hill that was never climbed,
generational leaps, perpetual flights, across the globe—
distant people, secular homes.
Sudden disappearance of everybody that'd previously set foot before us,
and those that were birthed as successors of my age.
This generation persists, grows past its youthful bloom, and virility,
settling into homes stacked one upon the other
without the previous mandate of space—
lacking the minor horrors of dark hallways,
where echoes of distant laughter, and chatter merged.
Inside, there are people of all faces, and races,
melding away into a drone of self-imposed shame,
they remain tamed—turn up to work at eight,
return in the evening to grow stale in a box,
keeping it neat, after having all bills paid;
"Who are we doing this for?"
My age was one of conformity,
exhibiting restraint in interest of the collective good of all.
The matter was of great humiliation and shame in the yesteryear,
it came today as a wave of hubris, upon which we declared abode.
Order sustained even when no government came to power,
the lands were irrigated, forests kept—the polar tribes were all that perished,
or moved to the bustling, equatorial West.
Food and shelter were still borrowed in exchange of gold,
the work was as mundane as ever before:
filing documents, addressing complaints—
serving the ‘impending means’ in the name of public welfare.
It was a well-trodden path, which kept the masses occupied,
unawares—a state of peace sustained, and bystanders and leechers
found methods to exploit the working populous again.
It was a tragedy to see on the seldom visits I'd take to the city,
the revolution here, returned all wealth and prosperity
to the maneuverers of the previous reign.
I was too weak to join the protest,
I was kept down by familial ties—
this new resurgence of domesticity was all I'd urged and strived for,and for long.
Neither of the waves ever afflicted my valley,
I kept peace and silence, as everything else in the surroundings of this dome
underwent desolation before my eyes.
It was yet another accusation,
of cowardice, and concealment of fact.
I had a prized possession, of a Nietzschean lion's mind—
perpetually negating all avenues of growth, in perpetual denial;
it was built over a basis in obscure meaning, origin, imagery and aim,
tainted well through to the core by this newfound perspective,
offering transcendence in exchange for exile.
So, I couldn't love anymore, or keep a promise alive.
I would impose myself, lean upon people that persisted in disappearance,
and those that’d declared their abode in the Orient—
those that shared my lover's clan—
if their sight brought a remote resemblance to mind.
I was denied of kinship or a night stay at least a dozen times,
now I must reduce my ambition and impose myself back onto my lover's place,
find remnants of her as I wander throughout this house that I’d made—
I've ought to then wish for some other docile man to encounter them in the day again,
and for them to actually last.
I've ought to seclude all written letters of heartbreak and ache
wherein I beg for their return, and keep them away in a safe—
I can't muster in me the courage to put my love to flames,
or make it drown in the passing current of Thames.
A year since The Third World Hurricane has passed,
the Orient doesn't invite me anymore, it never has,
or welcomed me when I made a visit.
But I've ought to hold on and fulfill my task, regardless of the reception I get.