Poem: In The Mall Release 1.1

In the Mall, you can go into the John.
No one in there talks to you,
Nor tells you the truths what kill.
You can walk into a stall, lock the door
And huddle against the cold wall.
You can shut all the bad shit out.
You can be alone in there.
And feel what George and Jimmy felt
Just afore they shot themselves.

But I’m not one of those what dies of their own accord.
I’m one of those what has to be killed.
It’s in the blood and bone,
There’s no gettin’ shut of it.
My life is nailed to my spine
And I hain’t got a crowbar
To rip that fucker free.

Sometimes the only thing that keeps me going
Is the certainty of dying.
Sometimes, when things are really bad,
I think about cancer, heart attacks and strokes,
Car wrecks, fires, airplane crashes, drive-bys,
Muggings, murder, riots, wars,
Famine, plague, earthquakes, tornadoes,
Poison, wrist-slashing, hanging, belly-slitting,
Nuclear bombs, designer disease and home-grown genocide
Until I start to smile.
I’m only in this shit for life.
It’s not like it was permanent.

Smiley, he’s the Mall manager.
He’s Old Money, New Money, No Money A’tall,
A rich boy, a farm boy, a homeboy,
Corn fed with a silver spoon,
Off the streets in a Rolls,
Came on the Mayflower and was here when it came.
Smiley’s at home wherever he goes.
Smiley keeps the Mall runnin’,
Passin’ out seed money,
Collectin’ the loans
Plus interest and penalties
Then passing everything on
To someone new.
And whatever is bought or sold,
Taken or given, won or lost,
The Mall – and Smiley - gets a cut.
That’s one reason they call him Smiley.
So no matter how much you come in with,
Or how well you do Inside,
Sooner or later, the Mall, Smiley, has it all
And you have to leave – or be throwed out.
Everything else is just detail:
Whether you’re bound for the Taj Mahal
Or a stewpot in Uganda
Your toe-tag reads the same.

Outside the Mall?
Well, opinions differ.
Some say the Mall is everything,
Some say it is nothing at all,
Some say they’ve been Outside
And come back in again.
But if’n you ever want to see an old cop laugh
Ask him about eyewitness testimony.
The only sure thing is that you’re in the Mall now
And that you won’t be here forever.
And when you go, you cain’t take nothing with you
Exceptin’, maybe, memories.

This bein’ so, folks try to leave their mark behind ‘em.
Some spray paint on walls, some start stores,
Some write poems, some pass laws.
You know how it is:
“Look upon my works ye mighty and tremble”.
Other folks submerge themselves in something bigger,
Something that will go on when they’re gone:
Families, governments, businesses, tribes.
Me, I’m in a gang.
The Wise Guys.
We’re the baddest of the bad.
We’ve drove other gangs clean out of the Mall:
The German Valley Guys, the Upright Guys, the Robust Fellows
And ten thousand lesser gangs like the Terrible Wolves and the Saber Teeth.
The surviving gangs pay us tribute
Or work for us outright
Or cower in the furthest corners of the Mall
And hope we won’t come for ‘em.
But what goes around comes around
Or “When the perfect cometh, the imperfect shall pass away”.
The Mall’s just too big to handle
The way the Wise Guys do.
So maybe someone else’ll take us down:
Maybe the Superior Guys,
Maybe the Cyber Cowboys,
Maybe the Silicon Brigade.
Me, my money’s on the Silicon Brigade:
You can only hold so much of the world in one skull,
No matter how big you make it.
And even if you splice hardware to the wetware,
After awhile, it’ll be the tail waggin’ the dog.
So in the long run, the Silicon Brigade is the one to watch,
‘Cause they can build themselves into whatever they want
Iff’n they should ever chance to want anything.
But whoever, whatever the next gang is,
When they make their move, they’d best remember:
He Who made the Lamb made me.
And He didn’t make me to go quiet
Nor yet alone into the Night.

But maybe none of this is ever comin’ down.

Consider the ant.
An ant is stupidity OD’ing on speed.
They don’t think much,
Don’t need to.
Five or ten billion ants runnin’ at top speed
Every wakin’ minute,
Hell, one of ‘em is sure to stumble across something good.
And what one ant finds, the rest can follow him to.
Hyperactivity can be handy.
A hive of ants can act smart
Just by being really dumb
Really fast.
Five or ten billion Wise Guys hustling and scheming
Every wakin’ minute,
Hell, one of us is sure to stumble across something good.
And what one Wise Guy finds
A million Wise Guys can figure how to get more of, easier.
So maybe,
Maybe enough of us, runnin’ as fast as we can,
Might bring in enough to save our asses.
Hell, we might run things forever
Unless’n we stumble across neighbors
What don’t cotton to fire ants.

Or things could be different yet.
The Mall has little ponds here and there,
Stocked with Koi and Frogs and whatnot.
Sometimes the Frogs have little lily-pad orgies
Leavin’ frog-scum floatin’ on top of the water.
Most times, the frog scum gets et.
But sometimes it lasts long enough for tadpoles
To grow, to wriggle free, to hide
To maybe grow into Frogs.
You can feel right superior, lookin’ at frog scum,
Bein’ as we invented romantic love
And rape.
Some folks get so full of themselves
That they start spoutin’ off stuff like:
“We are as Gods so we might as well be good at it”.
As Gods? Maybe so.
But gods of the old timey Greek sort:
Who’d screw anything that stood still for it
And blast anything that didn’t.
We’ve got power, all right.
But we’re sorely lackin’ in wisdom.
Me, I reckon we’re just upgraded chimps:
A mite bigger memory, a bit more RAM,
Higher speed, better speakers
‘N’ more sophisticated programs.
Just jumped-up apes with good posture
Bad attitudes
And access to nukes.
Apes.
Who know how to punch buttons
But have only a glimmer of why.
Human folk are limited
And might just have outlived their usefulness.

Or maybe not.

Maybe we don’t know what we’re good for.

I used to think that we were baby Gods,
That in the fullness of time
We would become more than we are:
Wiser, kinder, smarter.
You know: better.
But as I get older, I see our limitations:
We don’t live long enough to learn;
Nor do we have the wit
Were we to seize the time.
But I still have faith and hope
That one day two or more of us will gather together
And Something Wonderful will happen.
Something we can no more imagine
Than sperm imagines babies.
In the meantime, we remain as we are:
Frog scum floatin’ on top of a pond
Waitin’ for Genesis.


4/13/2005