YOU OF ALL PEOPLE KNOW WHAT I MEAN

You of all people know what I mean
work all day to live a few evening hours
work to buy big screen tvs
so we can watch actors pretend to live
waste our lives even more

You of all people know what I mean
working to own objects while the employer owns us
tell yourself there is always tomorrow
can a life be more wasted
when it is fixated on property

You of all people know what I mean
Dreams: carrot on a stick or legitimate goal?
the carrot is rotten
you can never reach it anyway
the stick will poke you in the eye

You of all people know what I mean
you and I
are we
are us
we are the people

Is your carrot on this list:
life with meaning
fulfilling job
   or at least a job that pays good
   or at least a job that has good benefits
   or at least a better job next week
bigger house
faster car
hdtv with details of phony faces and fake lives
get more of everything that can break

Victor Schwartzman is a founding member of www.outsiderwriters.org. He edits OW's book review and political poetry pages. Contact him at victors@mts.net, why don't you. Please check out his prose fables (others are in the Cherry Bleeds archives), along with other fine writing, in the just published paperback from New Record Anthology. Currently Victor is working on poems about elder care issues, will be 63 in August, never actually thought he would live to see 2001, and is now writing about himself in the third person so maybe it is 1984.