All of those thousands, those
Hapless and fate-infected hundreds of thousands caught
Up in the buckets of life's Ferris wheel turning, turning,
That huge, mechanical insectoid wheel grinding
Steadily onward, relentless; some going
Up, happy, hopeful, drunk on prosperity's
Bountiful joys, full of optimism and dreams;
Some on the descendant like a fat, green moon
In its waning, jostled and jolted, struggling to
Hang on by bleeding fingernails, false
Grin to the world, determined to turn
Everything to rights again; and those
Nearer the bottom at the abrading
Millstone interface, those struggling
Hordes of almost skeletal people, unfortunately
Recognizable, and not too much unlike
You, or me; those desperados crying out,
Beyond coping, beyond rescue or hope for hoping,
Being ground up and crushed and crumpled, those
Victims of time, slipping and dipping down into
Brown, murky pools, where all sound
Skitters to a stop.
20090911
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Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.
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This piece is incredibly unlike you, E.B. It's very depressing. Real, yes. But still, shockingly unlike you. Nevertheless, it is a very remarkable thing. The flow is like the relentless wheel of fortune you describe. It goes on and on, almost breathless, through all the stages of decay and descend into the very abyss of Hell with no return. Yes, abandon all hope, thou that enter. Then it comes to an end what a breathtaking (literally and otherwise) end it is! Sound skittering to a stop. My God. This is remarkable in three ways. The alliteration, obviously; the personification or animation of sound; and the usage of a sound that you normally associate with, say, spiders(which only serves to emphasize the mortal and toxicity of the life you describe).
ReplyDeleteThe green moon metaphor is just too perfectly brutal and imaginative.