i am—i fear my continued being;
solitude trapped like my reflection;
half self-made into a slave, enabling:
the other half to be coerced freely
like the pig in its dear muck wallowing,
my semblances calling themselves happy.
in person sober always concealing:
depression has been my master since
the first memory worth remembering.
and we laugh of how life is a cinch
amid vital eyes where every smile
is beautiful—unwelcome: struggle, bile.
we, in politics still non-existent
as the spectacle explodes on our backs,
our atomisation as consistent
as series, as the urgency that lacks,
as our enemy's secret attacks that
give us illusions to keep us content
and indignant and passive and apart:
before apocalypse, and our masters.
every superficial wound or scar:
a signifier of something deeper,
a structure probably still gushing blood;
a symptom of unequal heritage.
i am a slave severed from history,
from forgotten strength of my fore-mothers,
from ignored conquests of my fore-fathers,
from my foreign birth-place and mystery,
grown comfortable in my tailored chains
and ideologies without ideas.
i groan through narcotic smoke for vistas
clear as the love i know is in your heart,
for shared stories of logical revolts,
for redemption of past revolutions,
for real collapse of tyrannical abstractions,
for my masters to fear my continued being—
for passionate thought, to be subject with you,
our loyalty fused, our direction true.
there are references to John Clare (the whole style of the poem at the beginning (a poor imitation)), and the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, Mao Zedong, and Alain Badiou (v subtly/vaguely/not really). on the whole, too accusatory maybe and crude for certain.
"Cast away illusions, prepare for struggle."—Mao