In costumes & stage-paint, laughing, praising & rewarding one another,
the others put on shows, each to demonstrate easy prowess to each,
while the most desperately needy destroy future's bright & fragrant springs 
& the liberation carved out of the tyrannies & errors of the past.

I hang back, unsure:  it's so rare I know what to do 
that will benefit everyone who is not once & no-turning-back committed 
to ravaging, pillaging, & enslaving; & hoarding; while lying to themselves;
so rare I even know how to take a step that does not lead me into a trap.
 

In secret, these people are crazed with fear, frustration, self-loathing, confusion.
They are whirlwinds of desire to be other than they are.
They want to be those they have always envied, 
they want to be buoyed by the envy of others like themselves,
not mere aching sacks of blood & meat & statistics driving 
themselves on  with cups of coffee!

But, in public, & properly dressed, they navigate neatly in traffic that
fills me with dread & adrenaline 
in & out of the shadows of the monumental office buildings & hotels 
of the Miracle Mile & Gold Coast, and - shrewdly, calculatingly 
trade chains of restaurants & shops, & financial instruments 
worth far in excess of what I have earned & spent in half a century
and far more than I am likely to gain control of, in whatever time I may  yet live.

By the latest wireless devices, they are connected with people
as much like themselves as they have been able to locate in the chaos akin 
to an exponentially explosive sphere of bacteria
who are dedicated to keeping their information up to the moment.

When, discouraged by a series of failures greater than any preceding,
I brood on my inadequacies & bitter anticipations, & achieve nothing,
tho I waste a day, week, month, or season,
no one but me is more than peripherally aware of the opportunity wasted,
or of those whose desperate need I thereby fail to alleviate or transform
(they are completely unaware that I am attempting to serve them),
until - like a burning coal or log - that on which I brood
is burned clear down to the purest, airiest, white ash–& falls apart.

But these people dare not allow themselves to brood on their discouragements.
They & those with whom they share the assets they gamble are parts 
of one another.
Their next moments, days, weeks, months, & years are mortgaged
(based on prognostications–by consensus, realism's pinnacle–shorn 
of history, compassion, & hope)
to one another - & to those, exhausted, who have preceded them in 
corporeal & commercial combat,
and now depend on their unceasingly urgent cleverness, to sustain their 
life-support systems.

Their energy, feelings, thoughts, & innovations are mortgaged.
Their heritage & relationships are mortgaged.
Their ability to stretch, shake, get clear, & perceive–out of all habit, 
all pre-conception–is mortgaged.

They have plastic & magnetic credit cards coveted around the world,
by which they command servants wherever they eat, stay, or shop,
from every neighborhood & from six continents.

I am insecure, but, when I manage to extract myself from their sustained 
stampede & ever-reiterated rationale, my moments are totally, awesomely free.
They, too, are insecure–but their unpunctuated insecurity interacts 
furiously with ambition & greed & others' fierce expectations,
as oxygen interacts with oil, rapidly combining in a jagged, yet smooth & 
supple, dancing flame of orange & blue,
as tho in a furnace among the compacted sediments & stone & cables & pipes 
& sewers, powering, from below the streets & buildings, the undertakings of these "players," who "bring something to the table"

and their servants, whom everyone is careful never to refer to as servants,
and the children, & the scavengers, & the imprisoned, & the hospitalized, & 
the neurotic & intimidated, & the cloudy-eyed wanderers, and pigeons, & ants, 
& mice, & rats, & statues of lions & founders, & exquisitely crafted signs,
and the glint of a beam of light breaking thru from among heavy clouds, & 
angling off one of the millions of panes of glass,
and the low roar of the engines & tires of the vehicles on their competitive
yet complementary missions.

In public, the players must always appear upbeat,
and as they are always connected, interactive, up to the moment,
ready to make an audacious move while others sleep,
they are always–as they see themselves–in public.

Their voices & countenances must be under control & confidence-inspiring.
They must even sleep & wake with the kind of programmed grace with which a 
spot-lighted star, who has rehearsed lines & cues & positions - performs on stage before attentive audiences.
There must be no compromise with worrisome & contrary impulses that clamor 
from within, for attention, consideration, use.

When they risk looking at me, they suddenly relax, & laugh at my appearance.
I am the joker in the deck, the fool in the court of the castle of treacherous scheming.
Since I am no threat, & have nothing they value, to trade or exploit,
they forget me in an instant–& hurry on– as I would pass a sudden black &
gleaming fly, or a discarded can.

I admire their competence!
They are as amazing as eggs, or pine cones, or snow, or sheet metal, or the 
magnitude of gray & hazy Lake Michigan!
They are as entirely alert to what the other drivers, commanders, traders 
might do 
as cockroaches with trembling antennae darting among crumbs on a counter in 
the presence of light & humans,
or as sharks in shifting shadows, suddenly sensing something somehow,
twisting & turning under the Caribbean, or North Pacific, or east of Africa,
on pavement, in the air, & among the rooms & artifacts all over Japan, North
America, western Europe individually - or a whole industrial tribe - or the whole species!

Sensing something that might change the value of everything to which they 
have mortgaged
their hearts & hopes–& every moment–past, present, & future
.

The best & worst people originate great breakthrus -
that grain shall be raised, & beer brewed -
that thread shall be spun from fibers, & cloth weaved -
that wheel & axles & harnessed horses shall connect valleys -
that poetry shall be written in the language of teamsters -
that the Earth is not the center of the universe -
that everything is moving in relation to everything else -
that spinach shall be available in Wisconsin in February -
that rockets shall explode off launch-pads,
bearing intricate sensing & relay satellites & devastating bombs.

They join parties & manipulate whomever can be manipulated -
& kill if they must & if they can rise to the top by so doing
to rule all the Russians, Chinese, or speakers of German,
or take over the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, southern Asia.

They organize enterprises no authority will accredit.
Their work is not documented properly.
They don't know what they're working on - or how they'll survive - for years.
They're scorned by family & friends, imprisoned.

They become the most famous & richest
or spend their lives in obscurity, a joke among neighbors - 
vulnerable to attack by thugs inflamed by rhetoric
whose motives they can't even imagine the necessity of imagining.

Almost everyone else, almost everywhere, almost always
is thrilled merely to learn how to operate with the least stress
within the rules laid down by mothers & fathers;
stockholders, owners, executives; mayors, sheriffs, sergeants;
ministers, priests, medicine men, viziers, experts.

They prefer to rule, unknown, from behind desks & the walls of offices -
& to enjoy the power of money & fine cars & airplanes,
cellular phones, lap-top computers, sophisticated accounts -
& to control healthy youths, clueless, & eager for acclaim.

Also, they doubt the efficacy of everything they've ever tried -
as it sees to be thrown back in their faces without result -
except to waste their laughable stock of resources.

Repeatedly, they wonder, Have they lived their lives deluded?
Should they have conceded that the way things ought to be - CAN'T BE?
Should they have just used their blessed or cursed self-awareness
to become a professor, maybe, or producer of some comedy,
platitudinous governor of a state, author of some violent mystery,
distributor of clever toys, software, pesticides, oil, underwear?

They believe in nothing but results - 
some only in the bottom line, the best stuff, others' submission -
some in changing everything for the better for everyone.

They are smug in triumph - til brought down by competitors - 
or simply by the exhaustion of their own ingenuity & energy - 
opposed by the surly foot-dragging resentment of those whose 
affairs they command.

Or, they are sad, discouraged, frequently frightened -
only occasionally (after exhuasting every self-accusation & doubt)
recalling, as they knew at the start, that there is no one but themselves
     to do what must be done,
without which, the worst continue to gain the most, while the best gain 
     the least - 

& those born into suffering struggle merely to keep from dying
without ever knowing what it is to thrive, harassed
by misunderstood early impressions, by weather, viruses, bacteria,
& the smug insults of drones in proper costumes, persuaded - 
by those who use them as machines of production & consumption -
that they're free & smarter than most of the people on Earth -
& by sly & enraged outlaws - & deluded & paid-off enforcers.

From Athens, 
galleys propelled by three tiers of slaves with oars
----carried red & black vases with handles,
--------filled with olive oil & wine
& heavily-armed foot-soldiers—
& orators who'd studied sophistry—
----who proclaimed to citizens, women, slaves, & children
----of islands & coastal cities all over the Mediterranean Sea
-------how it would be.

Each year, six-hundred oligarchs casting ballots—
----they used shards of broken vases—
voted to ostracize & expel
---the Athenian who most upset efficient execution
-------of their exploitation plans.

Now, we're determined 
----to believe we're equal, benevolent, & free
because of the sagacity with which we've organized 
----our families, caffeine & cola cans, engines & petroleum,
----homes & yards, birds & trees,
----executives, legislatures, judiciaries—
----our genders & races,
----our muscles, accounts, & bits of memory.

We're willing to just laugh you off—
----unless you force us to acknowledge & focus
--------on injustices that haven't affected us yet
----------- from which we benefit, every day.