Lamento 17

I've got no more tears for personal pain, loss or gain. I may be breaking apart outside, inside, all over the place, I may be shattered to pieces and be damned, I may encompass all evil and waste, I may have lost all taste for happiness and strength, I've got no more tears, I'm dry and broke and I'll never cry. But that world, that fateful globe of all of us, that totality of suffering and torture, that universe of ill-will, of little people crushed by the weight of absurdity and totalitarian fancy, of stupidity and cruelty still breaks me up and then I'll cry that river, that private stream of pity, useless compasssion that don't do no one no good, that sucks you into the vortex of pointless longing, of powerlessness, but the world seems to be going, destroyed by cupidity right before our very eyes and we can't act, stupefied by sterile dogma and the law of averages. Oh for to go, to go into limitless light or deepest darkness, whatever, away from rampant rage destroying the destitute and despairing. Abject and without purpose in a supermarket world of willful nothingness. We all experience our personal hell, do battle with our demons but unlike the indians who'd go on vision quests, we won't be received by a nurturing tribe if we came out of it with a enlightening dream or even a sullen disappointment. So if you manage to gain some precious little form of sanity you're still all at sea, society rages on outside your door bent on some incredible suicide course, some superhighway to nowhere, some daredevil venture of utter self-defeating contradiction. The pope will dress up and bless you, the presidium will press your hand, the imam will chastize you, the general wil ostracize you when you're out of step and what else could you be if you've still got a smattering of wholesomeness somewhere in your battered system. So find a way the stand upright in the shitstorm, the tornado of tears, the vale of venality. The elements may bless you, lightning might mercifully strike before you finally give in. Goodbye.


1981.