Trust and betrayal are not polar opposites
Rather, they work like a neat pair of choices
Both are in play in a fixed game of cards
While everyone bets against a loaded deck
Trust and betrayal have congruent contours
Operating like some cosmic Yin and Yang
As inevitable consequences of each other
Close your eyes, gaze into the kaleidoscope
His orange Studebaker
Pulled up
To our house
Mac, my father’s friend
Struggled to get out
Gripping the steering wheel
Pulling his thin body
To the running board
His body twisted right
Broken beyond repair
In a mining accident
His left side
Ratcheted forward
His steps labored
He took the hose
From the coil
On the ground
Placing it
In the fifty-gallon barrel
One of six
In the bed
Of the truck
His well
Without a bottom
Blown out
By the explosions
In the nearby strip mines
I stood by Mac
Holding the grass sack
Full of Purex
Bleach bottles
Jugs I had gathered
At the dump
Jugs he would pay
A nickel for
Jugs he would fill
With the moonshine
He made on the hill
Behind his house
Mac always came
With gumdrops
With chocolate drops
With licorice
He bartered for the water
Mother was not happy
But Dad knew
Without the liquor sales
Mac would starve
They caught Mac
Destroyed his still
Locked him up
Five years
The judge lecturing Mac
For his sin
Of selling whiskey
In a dry county
And at the end
Of his work day
The judge
Had a highball
With friends
At the VFW
Rules are for poor people
Like Mac
The rich
Find their exceptions
The space
Between the laws
Fake news, foreign wars
And wiki-leaking
Generally speaking has
Only come to defence of the
Enemies of freedom
Not the voices of the lost
Or the poor who are the cost of
Making money at the double
Dollar euro rouble
So who exactly is working for whom?
I don’t see refugees resettled
Or rust belts get re-metalled
Hard-won rights are stripped and beaten
There’s fracking poison in the food you’ve eaten
Oil in water
Cancerous air
But the big boys don’t care
The proles loved Caesar because he said he was their guy
(He wasn’t)
His in-laws and friends killed him because they thought he meant it
(He didn’t)
So who exactly is working for whom?
More at http://www.dantindall.com.
We willingly create ties
which cut off circulation
rubber band life styles
pent up energy
removing blood flow
constricting oxygen
We release the knots
only to bounce right back into confusion
So we lace up our boots
and march on
until we can’t feel our toes
Thinking this determination will yield positive results
But eventually, you won’t be able to walk
Now we sit
stuck behind desks
covering our anguish with tailored suits
Pressed shirts and sharp collars
with bow-ties we forfeit our last breath
Tethered to investments
with very low returns
After long days
we trade these collars in
Only to put on ones with leashes
handed over to those that drag us
pull us
and bark commands
Never allowing us to walk freely
for fear of losing control
So they keep us close
Choking our spirit
We “stay” like a good pet
Because, well, that is what you’re supposed to do
This life
This everyday life
We perpetuate freely
Until the last heartbeat
And there is no
Life
Left