The Discomfort Zone

Since 1979 more walls have gone up
than have ever gone down, erections
made out of money as much as bricks.

The Construction Industry is in robust health,
with all the new divisions that it is expanding!
The new walls are better than the old,
they are less physical, and have less barbed wire,
with very few machine guns required for hire.

The 'no-man's-land' in between the divides
is now maintained by black ops manouveres
backed up by hidden security cameras
coupled with plenty of noisy propaganda.

From behind our wall we accept what we are shown,
democracy where the highest level performers
get the most bread, the rest just watch them perform.

Our screens define our histories as battles
between causes that haunt us like old ghosts.
Who did what and when they did it can no longer
be remembered well, but comes to us in fragments.

Our turmoil is both within and without,
there is barely the need for the knife in the back
to openly prove what the conflict is all about.

In the dying light our media shout for the shadows
of those in whom we once put hope,
looking for how to 'rediscover our traditions'.

When the walls seem high enough we stop listening,
and sit and mutter to ourselves instead.
No enemy can penetrate a mind so well divided
so in our madness we feel safe from all invaders.