False Start

When I was a slave
I'd look upon a cage
As a corpse does a grave
Beyond the point of reason

What thoughts must scamper
As death seeks to tamper
With that sumptuous hamper
We call a brain?

Is this food for thought
Or a farm we bought
When we kick the bucket
And life says 'Fuck it!'

But life clung to me
Like bark to a tree
All gnarled and scaly
Like lizard lips

And how they laughed
Those cherubic chaps
Snapping their snaps
For Uncle Posterity

While we cowered
Shivering and shamed
Our faces aflame
Burnt blacker by blame

Old Farmer Doug Digger
Feared nothing bigger
Than a troublesome trigger
So praise the Lord

He would yell "Hallelujah"
A good place to begin
As that whip chewed a
Stretch of your skin

Five, ten, twenty more
A currency of pain
No exchange for
'Cept the darkness

That cool collapse
Into an oblivion
No two-bit religion
Could ever understand

I lost myself
More than once
In infinite tunnels
Promising pinpoint light

Dreams darkened doorways
Of impassable thresholds
Where growing old
Was an illusion

Hunger bit you
Like a zombie
Gnawing on itself
Ignorant of pain

We were beasts
It was true
Ravaging the unworthy
Savaging the meek

For false freedom
To breathe again
That smothering stench
Filling our lungs

How we endured
Is a mystery
Our suffering succumbs
Beneath haunted history

We stood alone
And died apart
Our lives forfeit
A false start

© Copyright 2014 Robert Martin (rmartin at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.

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