Bright Lights

[Jimmy Stark]

Lit brighter with
the flick of a lighter.
Flying high above the skyscrapers
looking down on ants,
hearing their rants, their pettiness.
Their penchant for petulant pensions
giving their lives dimensions.
Dementia patients know more.
Numb to feeling I watch them riot,
losing themselves on bottom shelves
numbing their existence,
their resistance and persistence.
Alienated and degraded
the faded never resonated
through the walls of the Capital.
Where capital is the capital concern.
Where the hungry yearn to learn,
the bodies burn in turn.
The urn filled to the brim
with dim resolutions and grim solutions.
A dilution of the disillusioned
herded to graze on their graves by suited shepherds.
Treated like marooned lepers.
Looking for a place
where everyone knows their name,
but the game of fame leaves blame.
A quarter hour later,
naked and no more famous,
weighed down by emotion and expectation,
let down by this great nation,
the tears fall as you call your mother.
Who calls her brother.
Who kills that man, that lowly man.
The virginal Son of Sam.
Coming back down to my fine town
I drown in sorrow
because there is a tomorrow. When
I will again be whored,
my dignity gored. Then
I will fly once again
above my fellow men.
With the flick of a lighter
to make my mind brighter.