Hamster

Voluminous tomes and titanic volumes
Barrel upon barrel
Of that midnight oil
A thousand moonless nights
And countless sunless days
But you know what they say
About the daybreak -
I make these my darkest hours
That I might brighten my dawn.

But these should be my sunniest -
The flower of my youth
Should be outside in a field somewhere
Shining and being shone upon
But I spend my hours locked away
Petals wilting away in some windowless vault
Once bright eyes fried on fluorescent lights
We spawn a generation of the bespectacled
Hunched over my bibles -
Reading the parable of
Binomial Expansion
And the inscrutable prophecies
Of the Mole
Or perusing the will that executes
The Properties of Matter
Mindless cramming; we’ve no part
In knowledge’s estate.

There’s no Music to glad my ears
Or Art to light my eyes
I learn how to know,
Not how to think -
So I learn History without Philosophy
And the only literature I read
Is shoved down my throat
I learn to detest Poetry
You suppress my imagination
You force me to make my compositions
As dry as a bone, not as fresh as a daisy
Recycling the same old ideas
Industry, not Innovation
Is the student’s companion
Instead of Reason you gave me formulae
And told me the only things that mattered
Were those found in books…

That’s why I grew up thinking
That money equals happiness
And the number of degrees on my wall
Is the scale against which to measure Achievement
Instead of opening them to reality -
You released me into the world
With your punch-clock promise
Like wool, over my eyes
Then you complain and say
That the youth of today
Have no morals, no character
When every moral in your stories
Was ‘Read, pass, get rich; be happy'
And every character in your tales
Got the kingdom and the princess
And lived happily ever after
Now you try to tell me
That the material is immaterial?

So I work hard
Climb the corporate ladder
Buy a house, a car
Another house, another - bigger - car
Competing with the Kamaus,
Come the final stretch
I put in a herculean effort
And win the Rat Race.

I’ve the biggest house, the biggest car
I survey my victory
And remember all I’ve sacrificed
To amass all this misery…

Like a hamster in a wheel
Running with all his might;
Running, running, running…
But never going anywhere…

Reviews

[Amanda Dawn Sanderson-G..]

I always enjoy reading your work because of the reality of it all and not to mention, you've got a way with words - simple. I love how you use descriptions but still keep the story full of truths. So as always, I'm appreciative of what you write and love the story even if the reality is something I completely disagree with.

Side note: Damn those stories full of lies about Prince Charming and the happily ever after... life isn't even close to the lies those bullshit tales tell us. But God bless those writers like you.

[Alvin L. Kathembe]

:) Thanks Amanda...what exactly is it you don't agree with?

[Amanda Dawn Sanderson-Greer]

Not a problem, my dear friend. And mostly I disagree with ideas like, "That’s why I grew up thinking
That money equals happiness "; but it's a great write and you wrote it well and I enjoyed the read but maybe not so much the "morals", whether real in the writers mind or not.