The Human Condition
Big steel cabinets
rear their tall, bulky bodies
and reduce this space to nothingness
the way communist Panelaks
suffocate the grey landscape.
The sound of steel cabinets opening
sounds like creativity cells dying in the brain.
Look inside and thousands upon hundreds
of dusty, old papers start screaming at you.
You scan through quickly hoping to find what you need
then you close it fast with a bang
Quickly! to silence that screaming of dust and sweat and blood.
Because upon closer inspection
each one of those papers
tells the story of a person suffering.
Words, sentences, phrases describing someone’s pain
in legal, medical or made up terms.
Everyone looking to get something back
for the pain they once or still endure.
You die in the end. Inevitably you die,
but if you can get some payback while you are here
you give your life for it.
In those Panelaks
in the same dusty, sweaty, bloody way,
live thousands upon hundreds of poor souls.
Human beings crammed with hopelessness.
Their screams echoing the paper’s screams
in the tall, bulky, steel cabinets.
They were promised something better,
they want their youth and their dreams back.
They, like the papers, are easily dismissed.
Some unimportant beings, deserving of their fate
in those breath ceasing thirty story living blocks.
Upon closer inspection though
you learn about a sales clerk
or a doctor
or a teacher
or anyone contributing to society,
living in a steel Panelak
like a dusty piece of paper
unimportant, screaming for
redemption that will never come.
Few papers see the light of day;
Few of those people see the light of day
They are still here though.
Crammed and screaming.
Screaming while crammed.
Until someone decides to recycle them,
paper and people and all.
(2014)
