Copyright jim ferguson 2018
This is a list poem
how the world’s horrors scream at you
and how the middle-classes try to ignore them
and how the working-classes are seduced by soaps
and how the homeless and dispossessed know it
and how the poets drink to oblivion
and how the comedians think their personal lives are political/interesting/funny
and how the novelists write only pulp
and how the insane are mostly in prison
and how the newspapers strive to cover it... ...up
and how the oligarchs conspire to deceive
and how the religions rush to perpetuate it
and how the tv won’t really show it
and how the footballers don’t know the price of a ticket
and how the snobs watch the cream curdle
and how the athletes compete for the money
and how the bureaucrats use forms to hide it
and how the internet is too free to tell it
and how the musicians play nothing but pop
and how the bankers are rewarded for fraud
and how the politicians pretend nothing happened
and how the fiddlers merely fiddle
and how the junkies are mystics in tatters
and how the smokers pay all that tax
and how the gangsters are all really police
and how the police are all really gangsters
and how the teachers are nothing but liars
and how the stupid are the first to condemn
and how the pious are sexual oppressors
and how the drunks are poets in disguise
and how the arms dealers blow off your legs
and how the rage at injustice rages no more
and how the universe floats on around it
and how the spies are always your neighbours
and how the whole fucking thing is dishonest
and how you can’t even trust your own self
and how real success is to merely survive
a little longer
than the
person
dying in the bed
next to yours