Green Grass and Mustard Gas

City smog arc light dawn,
sound and fury, slight of hand,
the world wrapped in used gauze,
daylight filtering through the dried amber serosanguinous fluid,
sickly stain of tobacco smoke on white gloss walls,
disease sweet and cloying,
attaching, insinuating,
a permeating permanence,
grasping, suffocating, nauseating,
glue trap tacky, flypaper fresh,
painted lawns and oiled asphalt,
crackling tapping ruffling buzzing,
ticking in the grass and tickling the nose,
close stillness, muggy and sticky,
crumbling tar on dusty earth,
laying out the inexorable stretch of predictable days,
rat trap ethics, cul-de-sac freedom,
managed success, planned failure,
and a million billion distractions.

Schopenhauer told us that a life without pain lacked meaning,
but he failed to mention that a life without meaning isn't necessarily free of pain.

Pretend to be stupid for long enough and we can convince even ourselves.