I was spawned without logic,
Without reason,
A vacuum behind the eyes,
Only a glitzy nebula in the gap,
My mind must be locked up elsewhere,
Incarcerated in absentia,
Reason has formed a bogeyman,
Trying to drag me away,
To mundanity,
But I won’t go,
I’m fleeing sanity,
Cloaked in oddity,
I live as a madman,
Bereft of marbles,
Skipping gleefully along the path,
Sidestepping what you call common sense,
Seeing carousels and masquerades everywhere,
Persisting on this demented track.
You detracting tyrants,
Don’t try to railroad me,
I’m not factory issue,
I’m not a homing pigeon,
Not an outlaw,
Not bound for your stifling captivity,
I’m an artist,
Your box doesn’t contain me,
I am mutable,
I am liquid,
I am herculean,
I shall slip from your cubic cell,
This killing jar,
I’ll turn it into particles,
Erupt into the world,
A fountain of prismatic ink,
Every feeling under the rainbow,
Newly at liberty to compose and create.
There is indeed magic in this world,
Not of mana and incantations,
But the realm of nature,
Not of glyphs and sorcery,
But of our verdant mother,
The spells she wields,
Those helixes of code,
They are in perpetual flux,
Building blocks on an atomic scale,
Altered slightly in every iteration,
The marvels she summons are indeed magical,
Species and races and every tint of the rainbow,
Our mutations are the gifts she enchants us with,
Our differences are the witchcraft in our human coven,
In the magic of our DNA.
Is there herd immunity to loneliness?
I find myself something of a black sheep,
Not in familial terms,
But societal ones,
I find myself overmuch grazing alone,
These ebony rags of wool grow tiresome,
I hate how they suit me,
Like this I despise my form,
The mealy stench of my visage and attitude,
The feeble and disgusting sound of my bleat,
I have played the misanthropic loner for long enough,
I’d much rather be part of that herd,
Their grass looks far greener,
I don’t want to be me,
Can I instead be one of them?
Some of us escape society,
Canines of every shade and shape,
Runaway hounds and beasts,
Shredding our way out of vanilla cages,
Longing to run with more wild packs,
Individuals with no collars,
We’re bad dogs,
Authority wants us on a leash,
Normality reaches out with nets,
But we tore off those fingers,
And ran free,
Slavering and howling,
Daily life becoming wildlife,
Dodging slings and dog whistles,
Animal control in public form,
We follow sweet scents of unrestraint,
Tonight we are not docile pets,
But wolves on the run.
Those asylum gates couldn’t keep me in,
Iron can’t contain madness,
And so I skip gayly down that cobbled road,
With no destination in my cracked minds eye,
Eccentricity taken to the wilderness,
I’m a headcase,
A lunatic,
My companions are this top hat and disembodied voices,
Singing like glamour in my ears,
Poppies and amber and brimstone in tongues,
I giggle lavishly at the sound,
Counting the stars orbiting my skull,
I’m a headcase,
A maniac,
I keep jaunting,
Crooked foot after crooked foot,
Being entirely my mad self,
A one man travelling circus,
Until those white-coats catch me.
They expected worship,
Praying by the riverside was never enough,
Your exaltations not exuberant enough,
You had not bled enough,
Your knees not nearly scalded enough,
You are too free,
How dare you practice prayer unbridled?
They demand more,
Always more,
Those people from the spires,
Those who talk to clear skies,
They need you,
So an aquatic conversion must be performed,
Directed by a man in white,
The preacher forces your head down,
The river takes you,
A loving embrace,
Currents trying to warn you,
Drowning you before their holy water does,
But they take you from the river,
Into a set of invisible manacles,
This is an incarceration of a new kind,
The binding not of the wrists,
But of the soul,
How dare you practice prayer unbridled?
How dare you practice liberal heresy?
Freedom of spirit is a sin,
That man-made book says so,
The river could not save you,
Its waters muffled by echoing sermons,
Liberty drifts away.
To be normal is such a sad affair,
To attire oneself in grey boilers,
To toe the social line,
To be a drone,
Humdrum,
Uniqueness is a defect they claim,
We are expected to be numbers,
Cogs in a cold machine,
You must be this way,
Or else you are a mistake,
Normality is a guillotine,
A sharpened edge galvanised by off glances,
To live and die amongst a critical crowd,
Without your soul unleashing its colour and zeal,
Without your personal art being displayed to the world,
So I say dance without music,
Paint with your hands,
Think how you want to think,
Don’t lose that element of individuality,
Your mad grin.
I find myself bound,
Not by a jacket of canvas,
Nor by lock and key,
But by an assertion of vocal force,
A societal mandate of rules,
An invisible straitjacket of murky glass,
Weightless yet overbearing,
This garment bares a droll image,
The image of a good little citizen,
Projected upon my form without consent,
An alleged single form of living,
A sycophantic idealisation of conformity,
Enforced with strange looks and cupped hands,
Supposedly the only right way,
My elbows swell and circulation ceases,
Thrash as I do,
Trying in angst to be myself,
Itching and struggling,
We all wear this hellish restraint,
In this asylum of a sick world,
So tell me in truth,
Do you too rebel against yours?
There is only one way to travel,
To bring eyes on to the faces of the world,
And it is to take flight,
By the wing aloft,
By the gales breath,
Take off in your minds eye,
Be as the albatross,
An airborne paragon of freedom,
A cherub of flesh and feather,
Let naught bind you,
Voyage the malms and leagues,
Over the reefs and briny deeps,
The British Isles and the Rockies,
Over the pyramids of Egypt,
The steppes of Russia,
Be free as the albatross,
A globe of sights to see,
No more thrall to a terrestrial cage,
Simply declare to all who hear,
This birds strings are replaced with wings.
WorldofHarley 