I Live In An Insane Asylum!

No insult intended.

I live in an insane asylum!

consciousness, the wheels of my

intentionality, the beating heart

the images of imagination are all medicated

rationalized and socialized in a constant system of

existing that is appalling

sickening and untrue.



TV eyes me every evening

programs and advertisements

full of empty unintelligent humor

driving me hypnotically to purchase some item

I’m convinced I “need”

all along this false desire

is useless. This unneeded item will be

replaced by technology in a few months

and it will perform much better

and for more money (or less)

doing what I didn’t need it to do to begin with.

Communication

instantly; unintelligible, inarticulate, incomprehensible.

No faces and pulsing blood needed, machine-talk

replacement for mind-talk, heart-chatter, saccharin for sugar.



Noise, now called music, in every corner of my

life banging and blearing, vibrating my insides

covering over any perception of life. Noise from traffic and

trains, footsteps pounding city pavement at high

decibels causing deafness, alluring my total

attention from the tragic

unjust and invisible nations and peoples

throughout the planet, imprisoning them at places

far from sight, only a 60 second blurb on the news

then forever forgotten.



Speed, a former drug in the 70’s, now an

addiction again, no stopping production or performance.

An elderly lady riding the same train for 30

years, back and forth for two hours, each way-not

alive, not alive! Rush, time-clock shuffle the dance

of faceless mega-companies, multinational hybrids

poaching and feasting on the unknowing speedsters.

Speed a way to mindlessly jog through an

unthinking, nonresponsive, numbness substitute

life into a dead end meaninglessness and a yard

all our own called “alienation.”



And lest you

imagine this asylum is only American

I assure you the halls of this place

extend throughout this Planet

and into all countries. This insanity is

toppled regimes and violence

where we sacrifice

lives for power and greed

kill each other “to get ahead”

try to outdo each other

like Cain and Abel

eventually killing each other

and constantly switching roles throughout history.

There is no political solution;

democracy or socialism,

of course not totalitarianism.

For these systems

are driven by human hearts;

broken, alienated,

estranged humans that will never be full,

unwilling to be healed

this people continues to drive the political.



Reminds me of an old actor, George Sands,

hung himself, left a note “Good by world, I’m

bored with you.” Other notes might be left; “I’m

afraid there’s no hope.” “I’m tired of hitting my head

on a wall eight hours a day seven days a week.”

Or the young married couple when asked about children replied,

“Who would bring a child into this world?”

The insanity can only be made palpable to those rich enough

 for the anesthesia: entertainment.

The great majority of the world’s

people cannot afford the drug

so they live their nightmare

from moment to moment

as characters in our movies.



The puddles remaining from this violent sea of insanity,

this hydrotherapy controlled by the status quo

sometimes puddles along the floor,

leaving possibilities in its aftermath

hopefully enough to nourish the rare

but not totally unseen

seeds of optimism.





Richard W Smith

February 15, 2011