Picture –
The ancient slave
On one knee, hands in chains
From his dreams, he refrains
A soul destined
To follow his master
Like a beaten dog tied to a post.
The few who rebelled
Either died, or were expelled,
Outcasts for life,
Labelled as heretics, agents of strife.
The ancient slave
Was born a slave, a captive soul
Animated as a shadow, not a whole.
No freedom, no choice –
A voice
With its chords tied,
Its right to speak denied
Because slavers and a bill of sale said so.
Visualise –
The modern slave
The one who is born
Not with bonds made of chains
But of laws,
Of the systemic corruption
The incessant drive for consumption
And the illusion of freedom.
It is the modern slave
Who lives the greatest lie –
A purposeless drone who will die
Thinking he has lived
Because he had an affair with life.
A life fully savoured
Cannot be just this.
Working 40 – 60 hour weeks
A system that just reeks
Of exploitation,
Of the horrible foundation
On which everything we know is built.
Most of us
Work to eat, to provide,
No secret accounts to hide;
Most of us
Make enough to get by,
Maybe enjoy the weekend
When given the leave to do so.
Most of us
Have this affair with life
Living freely for a few hours
Like rain when it’s just summer showers
Brief flickers, drops of rain
Sprinkled onto an otherwise barren field of crops
Of which the main harvest is pain.
A few of us, however,
Endlessly profit and plunder;
The modern slave
Differs from his ancestor
For he chooses his master
And loves him.
He is conned
Into thinking his masters care
Allegiances are laid bare
Hands are cast in adulation
Rights undergo strangulation
And nobody bats an eyelid.
The modern slave
Caresses his chains,
Wears them like a badge of office
Distaste for dissidence of the state
Pouring out of every orifice.
The modern slave
Could learn and understand
Confront the shimmering illusion, the shifting sand
That is the realm of made men,
But doesn’t.
Rather than fight back
We consume the great lie like crack;
These made men
Will run our planet into the ground
Until it is no longer a home
But a graveyard made for us, by us.
These made men
Spin lies, smear the truth
Force them to mingle and interchange
Like mismatched lovers in a diner booth.
Reality has shifted
It has become unbelievably twisted,
Our perceptions are suffering.
Towards each other, we direct our hostility
Unable to grasp the possibility
Of a better way.
The modern slave
Is cosy in his prison cell;
The reality of the world outside
Is a structured, engineered hell
To be avoided.
So, we just build our own bubble
Outside of which
Our only, primary concern
Is how to get rich.
Life isn’t meant to be an affair;
Life shouldn’t be
Something we are given permission for
But a free pursuit of happiness,
A learning experience.
So, with this I will conclude –
Raise your fists in the air
If you are tired of living bare,
Resist
If you’re tired of a world that does not care.
