Saturday Poem

UTOPIA

Need a hero? Dozens on the street
are underemployed and easily pass
for men unwilling to live without freedom.
We usually pick the one with the best ass.

Faces are becoming less important,
reminding us as they shouldn’t of souls
we can’t reproduce, therefore don’t brand.
Capitalism’s last stage is to lower

subjects into a template, a sandbox.
Recreation is the great equalizer.
Those who won’t play are played with—progress
has made even martyrdom banal,

and I am forced to look on in triumph
as folks who believe something, anything,
are experimented on, not for science,
but to exhaust our curiosity.

From The Empire's Missing Links (2008) by Walid Bitar.