In The Suburbs
In the suburbs they build fences and mow lawns
and do bestial things to each other behind closed doors
and behind closed lips.
Jam-faced children press buttons and scream at blaring screens
while wives surrender to unwashed husbands with horrible hands
and then carve off pieces of themselves in the shower.
Isolated castles just far enough apart
that you can't hear the cracking of fists against faces.
Crow angels crouch on every rooftop like gargoyles
and peer through windows at sleeping bodies struggling not to dream.
They build cages out of university degrees and marriage certificates
and 104" UHD LED LCD HRQ SmartThin televisions.
When the creep vines slip in through the window cracks
and the rhinos crash against the garage door,
the husbands say "Out! For I am master!"
and wave their swords with whichever arm is not holding beer.
The cawing and croaking is getting louder outside,
and monkeys keep getting into the circuit breaker.
Mothers vacuum while children bite their ankles
and everyone pretends not to notice the strange antlered figure at the door.
In the suburbs they make cages to keep the wild animals out,
and to keep the wild animals in.
To keep the parrots from bursting free from the iron-chained chests of the husbands,
to keep the wives from disrobing and running out the door on all fours,
to keep the children from fluttering out the window,
to keep the labradors from remembering that they are hungry woodland predators,
to keep the apes from remembering life without walls.
One day these lawns will grow into great forests,
and these castles will be covered in moss,
and we will run together with chests wide open like canyons
on our original feet with our original minds.
One day we will stride through life unarmored,
undefended, unhidden and unadorned,
skinless and dripping art from our flesh like rain,
and we will greet our neighbors,
and we will know all their names!
And we will make music together
in a wild world
beneath a wild sky.
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I admire Caitlin Johnstone and so much of her work. This item, however, seems to me to be too large a departure from her past work. We are not Rousseau's savages degraded by civilization. Even at our most primitive we were always both good and evil. It is the understanding of mankind that will have the best thing win. Ms. Johnstone has been and is a force for honest education. In the meantime, I think this item is just one of her infrequent minor forays into ego-land. Christ said hate the sin, not the sinner. I see this as the best advice even when people are viciously attacking you, as has happened to every good person. We are all, to some degree, ignorant fools who need criticism with good will not hate. As an American I see Caitlin Johnstone as one of my country's best friends , even to those wasting their lives chasing false dreams, some of whom live in the suburbs. And I do agree some things in people should be hated with a passion.