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Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

A Traveling Cowboy Visits My Home

Joseph Mayo Wristen

Our future is no
longer about faucets
or lamps or images
from a magic box.

It’s about free choice.

The rats of the tube
they want to hypnotize
you, commercialize
you, entertain you with
their imaginary screens
of violence and sex.

Package it then sell it
to you with their red
white and blue
plastic charge cards.

Order this special.

You have to have this one.

Man.

You can watch the tube
anytime you have the
need to make love to it
give your money to it’s
ministers despise it
hate it, but you can’t
turn it off.

The black electricity of
capitalism, it’s in control designed
to take away your identity.

Each time you turn it on
it looks to turn you on
to stimulate your brain.

The pictures of a mad
Killer a photograph
of a loving father the
shot of a jealous wife
each wanting to have
an affair with
each other’s neighbor.

The black electricity
running through the tube
it is taking over our lives.

Destroying our society
programming us
to make dying easier.

It’s here to take our
Children to make slaves
of their brains to
make them better killers.

A Voice.

What I have are only
words they are not
healing they will not
make you fell better
but they are the truth.

And the cowboy left my
room and
road off into the Sunrise.
© 2000 W.E.I.. All rights reserved.
From The Code | W.E.I., 2000
Reprinted by permission of the author.
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