On Freedom and Other Minor difficulties.

 

 

The problem with people

some people say,

is that they just don't know how to be free

(unless they are told

or frogmarched to the scaffold

to tie their nooses on the tree

kiss the dead king's lips

and curse the graves of their ancestors)

no. the problem seems to be

that we simply must be told -

self evident truths are not enough

and are hardly visible in the fogs

of politics and cash and hardball -

we live in freefall

the people cannot be trusted

for trust itself is wasted

when all around is lies

no. the problem seems to be

the system, the bourgouise,

the banks, the lawyers, the tv screens

no. before this, all was fine.

well some of it, the bits we like,

the myths of cannibals and war were overstated,

the stories of the blind

like odysseus and the cyclops -

yet no man should call himself no man

for fear of being mistaken

what larks for that brave sailor sure -

but the poor old blinded giant

bewailing his lost eye.

no. we must make reparations

for no man enslaves himself

it is others who do it for him

and we know who they are.

yes. it was them, up on the hill

in the past, in the burnisht towers,

in the castles, in the bars,

in the libraries and theatres

on the stage, in the lights

yes. and also in the darkness

they're known to hide

like shadows in the cave, like plato said

yet surely he was wrong

to think that we could know anything

of truth or justice here - or there

in those dark barbarous times, with pagan gods

and all those slaves and whores

no. the true republic is yet to come

a church not build with hands

yet not a church of course

a mobile, free and builded union

of our sincerest dreams

amended only by time and sacrifice

and ample legislation, dedication and

attention to the people's needs

as they are known to be

proscribed, dictated and written down indeed:

for no man rides for free.

 

John E. Vistic