Waves
Trouble comes at you in waves
Crashing against you relentlessly
Demands and criticisms
Dangers and needs and insufficiencies
Conflict and danger and worry
These waves are eternal
They never stop coming
And like stones on the seashore
these waves can shape you
wear you down
wash you away
Some days are storms
the waves hit you like blows--
Other days are placid
and you feel nothing but a caress.
What can you do?
You can't stop trouble from coming
any more than the rock can stop the sea.
But just like the rock
you can stand strong
with eternal patience
and understanding.
* * *
Putrefaction
There was a time when I saw a real problem with rock and roll--
Rock and roll, and beer, and TV,
and everything I really liked basically--
Because I saw them and all the other
amusements and entertainments that make life tolerable
as blocking real progress--
Anything that lets the proletariat blow off steam
prevents the steam from building up and rupturing a broken system.
Because who needs to concern themselves
with throwing off the yoke of the oppressors
if you can get drunk and dance to good music
and if you don't meet a girl or a boy or whoever you like
there will always be some TV to keep you company--
Marx said religion was the opiate of the masses--
true for his time perhaps, although too narrow.
A regime that represses everything will always fall sooner or later
But an oppressive system that allows religion
and beer and porn and rock and roll and everything else
is very difficult to overthrow because
there is so much to distract the oppressed from the oppression--
and it's so hard to focus on the putrefaction of the system
and overwhelming injustice and inequity and corruption
when your sports team is in the playoffs
and there's a new Thor movie coming soon
and weed is legal and beer is in the grocery stores--
Who could rebel under such a system?
Consumer culture keeps us as happy little victims.
Billionaires laugh
while we drink and dance and blow off our steam.
* * *
