Behind the Veil
To roam these stifled jungles,seeming to stand still as the concrete treadmill treads beneath
and a wreath of neon hum-bum slaughters the stillness.
And busy, busy, busy
clickety-clack footsteps scurry about in circles,
hurrying faster and faster to the next red light.
In all the noise, I cannot hear my voice
and only taste my silent scream
as tattered echoes of this shattered dream
pollute my bloodstream with their sickly poison.
I face them weeping –
billboards leering in a shadowed imitation of my pale and wretched face,
faking smiles
and all the while informing me of the happy home of my lost happiness
now housed securely in some purple pill.
And I can frolic to my fill –
all at the small, but printed, price
of side-effects I'll surely sacrifice:
sleeplessness, drowsiness, constipation, diarrhea,
and a slightly nauseating vomiting
projecting onto those around me
the infectious glee of my cardboard perfection.
And in the eyes of passers-by
disposable pupils grow dimmer,
flung far into forgotten trash-heaps,
bereaved by no one but my tear-stained gaze
as I stalk my breath through the alleys, suffocating,
drowning in the ghastly innards spewed upon me
from the darkness
behind the glittering veil of middle-class utopia.
And I sigh as the sinews unravel –
the sorrowful struggle
of muck buckling beneath the burden of its own horrific weight,
exploding in a soot-stained supernova
of empty coke-cans and yellowed TV guides.
and I think: is that what it would take
to break the hold had upon the eyes of my people?
But as vicious splinters of dunghill debris
stab deep into their dormant corneas,
I weep at the thought that perhaps, even then, no one would notice.
Poetry by sasha khrebtukova
Read 900 times
Written on 2007-04-22 at 00:45
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