We Decadent Slaves by James M MacDonald (paper ebook reader TXT) 📕

We Decadent Slaves

We are slaves to creature comforts
Decadence our chains
We have grown accustom
To our lives with few pains
We don’t walk to work
We drive so we won’t sweat
But we run upon our treadmills
So our fitness goals are met
We’ve abandoned simple pleasures
Like books, tea and wine
For blogs and energy cocktails
And our cell phones so divine
We can’t save our planet
Our children or our selves
But there is no level of decadence
In which we fear to delve
So tell me what would you do my lovelies
If all your make up were gone
The only light you had
Came from the coming dawn
Dependent on our luxuries
I often wonder if we could live without
When the next Dark Age rises
I suppose we’ll all find out

Experience

I did not cry today and I am not proud, I only mean’s one thing
My day was devoid of experience that might have a tear to bring
I don’t mean sadness, although, that would be fine
Just something filled with passion that might over whelm my mind
I want something to smother me with wonder or crush me with desire
Engross me with its beauty or consume me like a fire
It’s for the experience we clamor; our lives have become so drab
I need a million colors or just one to take a stab
At a deeper, richer, meaning in the definition of it’s hue
If I ask it of the colors then why can’t I ask it of you?
I did not wake today I am not proud I slept walked through my life again
There was more to this, more to me, I just can’t remember when.
I owe myself a morning that is not a punishment
So I might feel a bit of joy and just a little content
That I am seeing another morning soaked with brilliant sunlight
And I have one more chance to understand the mystery of the night

Deprived

Deprived of purpose, deprived of sleep
Deprived of significance we weep
For ravaged jungles and senseless crime
Deprived of consequence and rhyme
Deprived of honor and of substance
Deprived of wonder and of happenstance
We are dieing from asphyxiation
Deprived of any sort of liberation
Deprived of lineage we have no pride
Deprived of leaders we have no guide
To lead us through uncharted paths
Deprived we are of honest laughs.
Deprived! Deprived! But Why?
Please don’t blame it on the sky
We chose, we chose not to appose
And we are all responsible.

A Disappointed Conversation

Measure me if you wish, I suppose I shouldn’t care
Just look at these plain disheveled clothes, this badly thinning hair
Watch me as I move along, with heavy plodding steps
Hear me as I wax polite with whom ever may be there

Judge me if it’s in you, come point out my many flaws
Pat me on my belly that has ballooned up in size
Talk about my memory so short and full of holes
Lecture me about the drink, try and make me realize

But while you wag your finger, and I pretend to hear
Your youthfulness will wonder if I’m even there
Your pride will take a beating if you stay around
You’ll probably think me cruel and hopelessly unfair

When I say to you, I’m not sure if your opinion really matters
As I have long existed without you and your feeling
So though you trumpet loudly all the thoughts in your head
Though your constant preaching has left my mind reeling

I am certain that while your points are many
I do not require your approval

A New Road

Come with us children, down a new road which leads to ignorance
Ignorance of pains, prejudice and hate
Forget all you have been taught
Speak freely but do so without malice
Truth is better then lies but grace is not irrelevant
Throw away yourself hate, you are who you are
You cannot be erased, only molded.
Allow your self freedom to explore bliss
Challenge your self, find one thing you like about you
Then find two
Continue on until the good out weighs the bad it may take a while
Remember time is a fascist construct so refuse to be repressed
Monday is irrelevant now is as good a time as anything so,
Sleep when you are tired and wake when you are not
Eat when you are hungry but don’t when you are not
This was all that was asked of us, we are not slaves to anything
Other then our own misunderstanding of life
We are shackled by our own restraint, and for no good reason so
Love if you wish but only if you mean it
Hate if you must but do so sparingly
There are so few worth the emotion

“The Gift”

The Mirror reveals what I don’t want to see
I cannot admit that thing is me
Foul heart that makes me live
I do not want the “gift” you give
So shove this knife though my chest
Scarlet blood will stain my vest
I will fix nature’s mistake
End all of the pain that I make

Fall into the arms of death
Weary hurt and out of breath
All that light fades from my eyes
All alone my body lies
With no more needs or wants
No more visiting dark familiar haunts
The places I spent so many days
Practicing my wicked ways
Now there is just a broken halo and a dirty face
From a long and fatal fall from grace.

TICK TOCK

Tick Tock Tick Tock
My are chains are disguised as the minutes on the clock
My shackles the calendar hung on my wall
My cell is the confines of my age

Tick Tock
You are my enemy, counting off the seconds of my life
You are the worst of the tyrants
Blasted Clock!

Tock Tick Tock Tick
I am through rushing for you. NO MORE!
I will not scurry about at thy beck and call
You are no longer my captor.

Tick Tock
No more that sounds makes me Sick!


CONTACT CENTER

To the Management
In here it isn’t what you say but how you say it
Have you ever heard anything more absurd?
It isn’t what you do but how you do it,
because the policy must be preserved.
How can you speak so many words?
Yet you never really say a thing
Is this pale hollow life really what you thought?
Your endless, joyless, future would bring

To the Caller
Do I sound bored? Like I don’t care
Your right I don’t remember you name
If I sound lifeless it’s only because you’re choking me
Gagging with the trappings of this life so mundane
I am a person you know, not your target
Your words sting like a whiplash, they’re hard to forget
Just what have I done to deserve this? Show up for work?
Was that my crime? Why you just went berserk
Your questions your problems they all sound exactly the same
All you are really after is someone to blame


To the Agent
Each time your phone rings, it erases a dream
One of your lives loses a bit of its sheen
Each swipe is a penance for your lack of resolve
To do something better, to be more involved
I’m certain you all have better stories to tell
Better places to be far away from this hell
More then that you have a responsibility
To yourself, your children, even to me
To get out of your chair and do something big
Or just something else, get a new Gig

To myself
Can’t forget about me up here on my soapbox
Tossing out opinions like a handful of rocks
Lets aim that self righteous spotlight back in
Look at my failings, Oh where to begin
I claim to me more then this middle management guy
I speak about art and meaning and lie
I bitch about everyone and I am quick to lay blame
Then I spend more time complaining about those that complain
It’s me that needs the wake up call and a healthy dose of action
To show a little bit of balls and not care about the reaction

The Punishment

It’s vague but remembered, in passing like shadows
The lives I’ve lived before
They tug at my subconscious, hinting at greatness
A time when I was more
I was a ruler, a sinner, a saint
I was the lizard king
I was a killer, a mystic, a living God
I have been everything!

Handsome or striking, Charming or Wise
I stood above the crowd
A new purpose, a new calling each new life started
My voice strong and loud
I have been wizard, warrior, star
But all of that is past
Here now I am nameless, lost and obscure
Hidden in the shadow cast
My punishment for the lifetimes spent
Bringing the world to its feet
Is to bury me here in snow covered wasteland
A nothing without Conceit

Yoke

Please take this from me
This yoke of responsibility
Lift it from my shoulders
All of these burdens placed upon me
I know that I made my way here
I was mislead I was lost
It was not my intention to stay here
It has come at far too great a cost
To little reward for to much expectation
I don’t see how I can go on
So take me away from this
Before my chance is gone

Let me bask in the rays of a new fallen sun
Let there be no place I must go
Don’t answer the phone let it ring and it will
There nothing they’ll say that I need to know
I’m off on a journey all to myself
Where I’m going is mystery to all
The destination is nothing the trip just a fancy
The goal is something full of self serving gall
To force the world to get along on its own
Without me

Hello Friend

Hello Friend, May I call you Friend. That would be kind of you.
All right so it's decided, Friends we are. Just in time too. I could use a friend right now.

I am mourning you see. Mourning the loss of my relevance. Will you help me pass the time? We'll create some memories of old times. Yes your right, they won't be real but the real ones aren't that fun. I'm old now older then all of my hero's so lets pretend I didn't waste my youth following rules.

Let’s wear white after Labor Day and write poetry set to a techno country beat.
Let’s take an activist and a politician and put them in a jar. Let’s shake the jar and make them fight. Let's see who survives. Yes your right, it would need to be a mighty big jar to fit all of the lies and self righteousness. But we will manage for entertainments sake. After all what else do we have? We have so much time and so little to do. Something needs to dull the senses and quash those pesky free thoughts.

The Last Honest War

These images of fiction are causing me to fall in love with a fictitious past. The characters are real of course, but every bit of fiction is simply a mask for some sort of