All the lonely people

Look at all the lonely people tonight
Who run in circles ‘round their heads –
Unknowing and with stifled dreams
Strangled by the words of the powerful
Who bury their backs in soft beds
Keeping warm by the light of the fire
While the people on the street tonight
Freeze in the cold, burn in their ire

Has it not been made abundantly clear
To them, that they shall do as bidden?
They must cheer and whistle
At an innocent man’s hanging
Without knowing his crime or cause,
Only knowing that the bread they eat
Must be secured till inevitable death
Drives their hinds into their feet

So they run in large masses
Of equally lonesome folk,
All of whom are solitary followers
Just like themselves –
Patrons of an invisible master
Who silently rules through his ears and rants
That come from many mouths – a wolf under the cloak
Of intelligent dispassionate sycophants

And when these desolate secluded men
Turn for comfort in their own hedonism
Turning the earth into a breeding ground
For pestilence, brought forth by greed
And desperation – while a few who are valiant
Find that the haze runs as deep as blood inside-
Too well rooted to the ground by centuries
Of defeated honor and wrecked, trampled pride

So where do these lonesome men go tonight?
Do they seek shelter in the bosom
Of their corruption, unaided by any acumen
Of their own? a poison of notions surreptitiously
Mixed into their drinks and rancid food
And colored images and garish refrains
And vulgar crafts and malevolent apathy
And diseased carcasses and blood stains

Perhaps these lonely men will wake up
From their prolonged slumber
And wonder how their beards turned white
Before they could amend the mistakes
Of their youth – those that made their
Homes forlorn and their children deserted;
But before they can utter a sound of warning
Their souls are already gorging their final word,
Their eyes finally opened to the inexorable truth-
But alas of no weight, no merit and no worth.