humanity 1997

sometimes
   when the beast unwinds
and sinks its polished fangs
   into the twisted veins
      and capillaries of my mind
i find i'm metamorphosized
  with fuel-injected invective
 a mass-mediated derelict
misdirecting emotions into
   anti-venin words
  barely heard by a functionally
     illiterate flock of fuck-ups

uh...hello...can you read me
       loud and clear...?

he's breaking up
   he's breaking up

       i fear.

i fear i fear i hear
   white noise crackling
in static intent
   along bent and half-skinned
wires of generational
   miscommunication
where 'humane' equals 'insane'
  filtered from humanity
    and the sum becomes
      so much less
than the substance of its
    relative parts

an organism without a heart
  is merely a virus
    shot into the collective cells
replicating its hollow hell
   with a carbon copied
rna of half-baked
     conformist ideals
   cloned and intoned
with the squeal of lambs
  at slaughterhouse doors
   which becomes a symphony
in ears accustomed
   to apathy.

can you feel the passion?
   do you fake a reaction?

from the day
  the first monkeyman
pounded sound
  into sandstone symbols
hieroglyphic beats,
    primitive humanity
  sank carnivorous teeth
into the bloodbath of emotion
  known as artistry
cannibalism was a vogue thing
          then
  a feast of lust and rage
and joy and sorrow
   which has now fully blown,
evolved into a binary
   sleet of uno and zero

    god, where'd we go
         wrong?

when the heartbeat song becomes
   looped and distorted
bought out and converted
   into dollar signs
  and ticket lines
      built by corporate minds
who need to urge the masses
   to
     just
        try
           it.

    and why is it
when i'm at my desperate worst
i feel it then, within
   the wretched shrink-wrap
of my skin
   feel it unfold
in a thunderous bolt of comprehension
   through my soul

and at that split juxtaposition
  of infinitives
    nothing matters but the poetry
which inevitably,
  without remorse,
    devoid of excuse
bleeds into melody
   unforgiving
      unrebukable

and it becomes history
   coagulated in humanity

my legacy, my fallacy
  a relentlessly distracted
half-hummed
      rhapsody.

-- j sheridan fenn 1997