Grignard

Remote control in hand,
I zap from image to image,
Alone in the unreal.
I have no interest, no attention to give.
Overabundance only makes me unhappy.
I see people suffering
Yet cannot believe in their pain.
Still they are selling utopia,
Flogging delusion to the masses,
Sophisticated cretins, ever greedy for a bargain.
Technology is salvation, I am told,
But I, for my sins, do not expect to be saved.
What is this coming out of my computer?
Ectoplasm of nightmares.
My eyes are weak,my mind is weak,
All bored and distracted.
“Do you know what really destroyed the Roman Empire?
It was the pewter in their drinking vessels;
The alcohol in their wine dissolved out the lead
And so they were poisoned, generation after generation…”
All these chemicals are turning me into a woman,
My penis is shrinking,
My tits are getting bigger.
In the pharmacy I browse the razorblades,
As keenly as an art connoisseur;
Single edge, double edge or triple edge,
With or without lubricating strip,
Fixed or moving.
War,conspiracy and menace fire the air with fantasies,
And we call it entertainment
But everyone just wants to kill the pain.
The beauty of our weapons
Exceeds other considerations.
Sit back and watch the show;
The acts of strangers, banal and erotic,
Will be staged for your aesthetic appreciation.
And yes, there will be sex, lots of it,
Fornication and fucking of every variety,
Endless hopeless transactions of the flesh,
Enough to poison you,
Enough to destroy you.
In the airport bookshop my hand reaches
For a self-help manual,
Grimoire of platitudes.
I want to believe in the exponential curve,
But all I see is boom and bust.
Japanese riddles twist the air into lemniscates,
I think I may be a man from Japan.
The fake is so much better than the real;
He will have his penis enlarged
And she will have her breasts enhanced,
And they will live happily ever after.
Religiously, I sit and make Top Ten lists
Of everything, watching stocks rise and fall.