Midtown

Help! I’m trapped midtown…
A purple cosmic cloud is holding me hostage… aren’t we all?
Held hostage, that is!
The streams of consciousness that surround and bombard me
Envelop my extra senses. You know, the ones!
The ones that the TV personalities flaunt
Like flowers at the Rose Bowl Parade… I have them, too!

Years ago I could hear the screams from midtown
I could feel the pain of the miserable – but now…
Now I am back in midtown and I hear a different scream
This one is a melody – a melody of pain.
It is a chant one of hope, one of reason and perspective,
But the rhythm has changed; it beats to syncopated confusion,
Illusion of grandeur illusions of delusion… illusions of poverty.

I think it’s the lies playing behind this melody.
I can hear them being told – No, I can hear them thought.
They begin with a connivance of poverty that is based on a myth,
Then the thoughts are formed – and these people believe their own thoughts…
They haven’t stopped to think: Who thunk ’em first?
Where did they come from? Is there really a shortage?
Of love? Of money? Of jobs? Of food?
These thoughts originate in their minds – or so they think… but do they?

This thinking melody is a myopic stain – lies come in denying truth…
Ah, that’s it, truth – that ever slippery ground that floats
Just below the surface of reality…
Well, I’ll be… Reality! Another slippery surface to tread!

Reality is an ever-tangling web of deceit.

One that convinces the on looker that things really are as they appear;
However convoluted it may sound, most things aren’t as they appear,
Most things are built on the screaming melody of midtown.
At least here in midtown the screaming melody is REAL!

Copyright 8/31/92 Rusty Cline