While a man once said
‘It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world’
Wondering whether he would ever laugh again,
Others claimed it was not madness at all
Affecting the world as a whole,
Rather a psychological condition
A mental disorder, a widespread disease,
A depression of spirits.
The same medieval acedia blamed
To have killed many suicidal monks
Before someone dared to declare it a crime
A capital vice, a cardinal sin,
So that shame would be bestowed
Upon those who suffered,
And suffer in silence still.
Attention deviated to focus
On manipulating bodies to last forever,
To live longer a ‘sacred’ life
Regardless of how and why,
Neglecting to cater for obvious essentials,
Peace and wellbeing
Of unfathomable minds.
A mind humanity struggles to comprehend
Of which it knows so little yet expects
So much from, taken ill.
Much easier to gaze at nature
Observe the stars understand its home,
Than to plunge in itself to master
Its own, identity and peculiarity.
Thirteen billion years to get
To where we are for conditions to align
Just right so as to give shape
To universal consciousness in its most
Glorious form, Humankind.
A focal point where the Universe becomes
Aware of itself.
Roughly two hundred fifty thousand years
Since its first appearance,
Its mental illness leading it to spit
On the marvel, claiming and convinced it is
In itself a natural disaster, undeserving of anything
The Universe can provide, as nothing good
Can ever be engendered by the weird
Creatures we have become.
While the environmental toxins we surround
Ourselves with seem to be a self-inflicted
Punishment fostering our infertility
Threaten our survival on the long term,
Many like to say we do not deserve to stay,
The best thing we could do, line up in a queue
And with no merits nor distinction
Surrender. Disappear in extinction.
Truth is we are a work in progress
Nature continuously evolving
Into something stunningly powerful
Needless of weapons or titles,
Something wonderful and amazing
Capable of looking at itself in bewilderment
Humbly acknowledging its mightiness,
The extraordinary sheer existence
Of something rather than nothing.
As the lady slipped on the banana skin
The man laughed again.
 
[Featured painting: The Scream, undated drawing by Edvard Munch]