The Pain Remains

The pain, so real it blocks communication.
The agony abandoned by a nation.
Sweeping through the streets once held
in limitless, bright day's imagination.
Delirium caused by the great illusions
of a happiness that seldom came their way.
Now tumbleweed blows in the wind
of sins never forgiven.
Thoughts of death to fill the lives
of innocence as we are driven,
step by grueling step,
to someone else's chosen rhythm.
While the music of our generation
sings itself to sleep, we stay awake.
Knowing that our souls are still at stake.
The changes used to be so easy then.
The feel of love an essence
that would mend the many wounds as
existentialism grew too large, too soon.
Diving deep into oblivion, so brave.
Finding, at the end, no more than grass upon a grave.
The American dream turned obscene.
Now all our dreams and schemes
have turned into a fear too ominous.
We built too many walls as we were locking
all the doors against a threat that never
knew that we existed. Searching for the truth
of an existence where the meaning left us
wrinkled in repose. Supposing that we might
get up - although our eyes were closed.
Weakened by the ones who told us so.
So sure that they could never really know
the way our hearts once opened wide.
As love slid by, too often left unheeded.
Death waiting in the wings as if a heathen
breath of wind were blowing through.
Too civilized to claim that we once knew
of highs and lows between extremes.
That turned once healthy lives into disease.
Moving swiftly, flying on the wings
of someone else's cruel but sultry ultra symoathy.
Now lost and all alone within sharp reeds
that grow all through the brackish water;
fallen like deceit into our minds.
They claim they never meant to be unkind.
But there, beneath the masks they wear,
their secret wishes are laid bare.
Wishing us too far away to be an inconvenience.
Drugging us into a legal weave of their obsessions.
Pain killers cannot fill an empty heart.
Nor can illegal drugs become an art.
Smoking weeds that make them bleed.
Watching from a distant place,
we cannot fill their needs.
Condemned then to an utter banishment.
Shockwaves filled to fuel an embarrassment
they never seem to feel. Advertising sexual
performances that kill each sense of tenderness
that once upheld us all when it was for real.
As scientists and politicians walk upon
the walls of all division. Never caring
for the dream of heaven living here on earth.
Refusing to engage in soul's rebirth.
Hiding in bright cubes imbued with bare, electric light.
Feeding on an energy that never was quite right.
Watching all their babes turn into
slaves that only learn of revenue.
We did not make them what they are today.
Lazy creatures turning work to play.
We cannot pay the price of all their vice.
Left in pain too real to be devised.
Seeping out of caves where they have
broken all the sacred, ancient seals.
But tables turn and fuel burns
into a graven warmth that cannot
sink beneath the skin that's grown
too thick to take it in. The pain
we leave behind belongs to them.
Life to death, it's all insane.
Humanity turned into games.
Where everyone must win a loss.
The cost unmeasured by the lost
and lonely weight of love that
might have been...

? Michaelette ?