A Man on Fire

old restored

 

A mindless time warp through space
Leaves me sitting in a theater
Staring at a screen ---
Unchanging, vapid, cold
A white sheet devoid of feelings
Hiding the secret emotions that once ran wild
In a world of unknown beauty feared by millions.

Vicariously we live through synthetic polymers of expressions
That dictate the way we float from one frame to the next
End scene.
Fade to black.

A man on fire to my right stands up and walks away
Momentarily grasping my attention.
A man on fire, burning away,
Impatiently checking his watch every other TICK
And every third TOCK
Waiting for the one offbeat TACK that never comes;
For time never palpitates, never wavers, never fails.
A man on fire restlessly awaiting the end of the film with no image,
No emotion, and no sound
In a theater filled with no people, no feelings, no one around.

A man on fire leaves the theater's sticky, littered ground
Burning away he moves on
Travels inside his moving box
Goes to his sleeping box
And later to his working box
And then back to the movie box
But sometimes he will skip the film box
For the food box
Or the smoke box
And once in a while
The drug box and the sex box
But always to a box
That spoon feeds satisfaction
Preprogrammed preoccupations --
“FYE”
(For your entertainment)
Or was it
For your emptiness?
No, no --
Forget your emotions --
Yes, that's right
Forget your emotions,
Because they don't belong in this world
Brewing fear
Stirring paranoia
Fermenting hatred
And worst of all
Emitting love -- the greatest poison of all
Single-handedly felling civilization after civilization
Toppling governments, leading revolutions
Driving tanks through war torn streets
Raped by passion and affection.

A man on fire burns away
Becoming a pile of ash
Carried by the wind over the seas
Towards the Western skies
Dissolving into individual particles
In the heat of the final rays of the setting sun
Forgotten by mankind,
Forgotten by all,
Except for the trees which breathe in his soul
Pity his pour emotionless being
And weep for days
Hoping and praying that their tears
Will wet the dry sponges of the human race
And bloom them into the beautiful creatures they once were.