Space Dust

So here is the map of your life’s lonely progress
written in square dreams of one syllable or less
painted with hope and the available options
punctuated daily with bland indoctrinations
of milestones and millstones and mild mediocrity
of labyrinths and labour and corporate calamity
“What will you be, when you finally grow up?”
“A corpse, dear teacher, if I remember to show up”
Cynicism reeks of defeat and despair
The box that you rupture seems wholly unfair
Time wasted running the maze of your striving
To live up to standards without ever arriving
at the moment you sit in the warm rays of sunset
and savour the moment that was yours from the outset
Through ratholes and mazes, over hurdles and fences
Up snakes and down ladders through dark mirrored lenses
In the eyes of your children and the cries of affection
Through the pages of books and the words of direction
that echo “turn right” as you head for the ditch
that paint you with labels: lazy son-of-a-bitch
that attempt to define your place on the board
from the moment they cut the umbilical cord.

So drench me in the rain of a new green dream
Short-circuit the graphics on the gunrunner screen
With Fern sprig sprockets photosynthetic timepiece
Let me run through the fields of Jungian release
Dressed in my armour of fragile dream glass
Intricately sculpted in the shape of an ass
And I’ll rise on the wings of self-satisfied outrage
Knowing that the words I’ve etched on this fake page
Will transform more quickly via electronic rust
Into telepathic waste more worthless than dust
To be held in the mind of one or two travellers
Stardust indeed for non-conformist revellers.

June 2006