The Painted Albinos
THE PAINTED ALBINOS
Having first disposed of Unthinking Man
(Praise be for Unthinking Man
He makes us glad we’re not like him
He makes us wish we COULD be like him)
(And anyway he does think a bit
It’s just another cheat)
Another cheat
Everything Thinking Man says is a cheat
A big pretending that what he says
Is all there is
Or even all he sees
But if he owns up to being a cheat
To his neat chains of thought
To his neat little boxes
All being cheats that he knows are cheats
He must drop all his boxes
Cast off all his chains
And accept the world as it is
As it is
Meaningless – signifying nothing
Standing for nothing behind
Look at us here
Look at me here
We know what we are
I know what I am
And we go on living?
And I go on living?
I laugh
I mock us
But it’s a hollow laugh
And I’m a cheat
Everything we do is a pure waste of time
Everything, mind
We’ll never be known or loved by another
We’ll try to love people who can’t love back
And all the time we’ll be turning our back
On the way that we’re wasting our time
Babbling
And if we look round
And shut up for a minute
We’re so worthless and disgusting
We turn our back again
And pretend we’re unthinking
(Praise be for Unthinking Man
He makes us glad we’re not like him
He makes us wish we COULD be like him)
(And anyway he does think a bit
It’s just another cheat)
I mock us
But it’s a hollow laugh
And I’m a cheat
Posted on November 21, 2011, in Poetry, Writing and tagged Alienation, Bitterness, Criticism, Love, Pain, Relationships, Social commentary. Bookmark the permalink. 12 Comments.
Ben Naga 
i said it before, I’ll say it again, I love it!
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I think the new title improves it 100%. But thank you for your compliment. 🙂
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This one reminds me a little of a poem I wrote once about the masks we wear. It strikes me as a very honest poem, born out of pain. The feeling of alone-ness… and the question of why we’re here… and the freedom(?) of not thinking, of just being, of not questioning, of just accepting…
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Thank you for your interest and comments. In return, you get some background, 🙂
I wrote it when I was 20. I would not write anything in that way these days – the sort of style, I mean, not the sort of content. I would call it naive rather than honest (not that it isn’t honest), and it is, to my current taste, much too direct, bald rather than bold. The title is new though, and I think that lifts it up a little. It’s one of those poems that lie in a drawer or a file for years. You don’t feel it good enough to show to other people, yet not so bad you want to throw it away. Someone I showed it to recently convinced me it might be better than I thought, and that it might have some value to others. So …
The original title was “Edinburgh 1968”. I attended a conference there, and that’s where I composed it.
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I think this is most philosophical for someone “our” age at 20!!!
I get what you mean in the comment above – at 20, we were naive and more direct back then – not yet having learned the art of subtlety. And yet, this is a great poem, methinks! Thanks for linking me to it.
Nice to know someone else who remembers 1968 and who was the same age back then. 🙂 (Yeah, yeah, I’m a year older! 😉 )
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I was in Edinburgh. But I also remember Chicago and Paris. How we dreamt back then! Then along came Daley and his bully boys, and then the daily grind for 40 years. But the wheel turns and now we have Occupy, and it’s time to dust off our hope again. What the hell, after all. What else should we do? 🙂
And thanks for the compliment on the poem.
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Can I like it again? 🙂
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Only if I can like *you* again. 😛
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This is wonderful, I love the directness and raw feeling! Yes I am with Miss Audrey, I love this one. 😀
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Yes I thought/hoped you would find it spoke to you. But as for “wonderful” … 😳
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Very thought provoking! Its amazing! 😀
My new blog: http://leavesmethinking.wordpress.com/
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It seemed to echo some of your thoughts in the post of yours I commented on.
And thanks for the link. (And the compliment. 🙂 )
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