The Naked Troubadour

Rehearsing for the Storm [new poem]

Posted on Aug 17, 2020 Updated on Aug 17, 2020

I am not afraid of viruses of any kind;
I’ll take my chance, my future undefined.
For I look after my old system of immunity —
eat well, spend time in nature & the sun
and exercise at every opportunity,
take supplements & have myself some fun.

I also know that sometimes in this life,
there are some lessons to be learned
by falling ill; thus, I shall not regard it as
a failure of my ‘freewill’, should I succumb
to some disease or even from it die
(an event about which few will cry).
For one day every one of us will fall
because of accident or illness or decay
and it is folly for us to imagine, think,
or say that we will be exempted from
this foreordained progression of decline.
However, I will exercise good stewardship
towards this vulnerable body-gift of mine,
avoiding self-abuse, & with the harmonies
behind what can be seen with eyes will I align.

But if my life is full of fear and all I do
is cringe and toady to the powers that be,
then governments have won without a shot.
I do not need a bunch of suited drones,
who promote fast food and war,
to tell me that the rays of sun are bad for me,
that they know for me what’s best for sure,
and they’ll pump me full of drugs to line
their so-called best friends’ dirty nests.
Then out of one side of their mouths
tell me I’m free, while from the other
side they mutter how I’m just a piece
of chance biology and that their model
for humanity is one big mechanistic plan
based on ideology (whether left or right,
they’re two sides of the same bent coin)
and my only purpose is to serve the state
and that to give my life for them in war
is great (a lie) and what my life is really for.

The hugest masquerade on show today
is claiming that democracy and freedom
are now everywhere aflame and that
presidents have power on earth to make
things great again! 🙄 These are all just
figureheads to mesmerize the masses with
a dog-and-pony show, and all the while their
every plan’s devised so we won’t ever grow;
as hegemonic power-elites gaslight the world
with rituals and jargonese & plots unfurled.

A virus is the last thing by which we should
be afraid. For far worse things will come
to pass on earth which we never can evade.
Rehearsal times we are now in to test us
for the storm. The contents of dystopias,
science fiction works, will soon become the norm.

So when I say I’m unafraid of viruses & stuff,
it’s just my way of saying that I’ve had enough
of the charade of life and wish no more to be
assailed by all the phony news & ersatz strife.

It’s times like this I wish I had some kind of ‘wife’
to laugh at all my wounded jokes, to share my bed
of wilted roses, smile & give each other strokes
[not blood-clots on the brain but creative ways
of keeping one another sane!], someone who
dreams all in some lovers’ lane and, rather than
a drain, is a replenisher of life, a hot & endless
furnace rife with everlasting embers of a
never-ending orgasm which makes two into 1.
But here, for now, I’ll quietly settle for the Sun.

© Alan Morrison, 2020