Sometimes I feel like those who
Aren’t overwhelmed
Aren’t tired and broken down
Aren’t hunched and encumbered
Those who can breathe without
Feeling a tightness that strangles
An immensity that fills the heart
With shadowy, sorrowful tangles

They must not be listening
Must have sheathed their eyes
Within the blackest, sight-denying blinders
Or else resigned to a myopic gaze
Yes, they must have made
Some unconscious decision to don
The enduring armor of ignorance
Deftly designed to repel the obvious
Forged in the fires of whimsied romance
Of furtive fairy tales in which
The protagonist, hero, heroine, the revered
The beautiful, the admired,
And all their supporting characters
Are agents of nothing

Sometimes I feel that in the stories of the free
In the mythology of respiting privilege
There is only one antagonist
Against which said armor does protect
He is truth
He is compassion
She is courage and love
She is feeling and thought
He is meaning and substance and matter itself

So, take heart, my armored many
For, it seems to me, your villain
Is nearly dead

I have the utmost faith
That each of you will do your parts
Will walk with your heads down
To your dramatic destinations
Will ignore the journey, the repercussions,
And every longing bystander
Yes, you will merrily spend, and sell,
And buy, and sell and sell
You will straightforwardly tread
Over the downtrodden with your feeling-less feet
Your blind eyes will roll about
Inside their numbing sockets
Your deafened ears will placidly bypass
The rhythms of opportunity and intuition
Your made-up mouths and raised noses
Will vivaciously avoid
The fruits of feeling, the pains of principle,
And the arduous trials of belief
In one’s fellow man

Upon the hour of final victory
I will write of epitaph and eulogy.