Suicide
by Elisabeth Pruitt

One drop in the ocean.
One stalk in a haystack:
Who really cares?
One more mouth to feed,
One more speck of humanity.
What's identity?
Yeah, there's no sense
Left, no meaning in a
World where somebody
Starves to death every
Minute, and farmers
Curse and mutter about
The economy while
Burning their crops of
Corn and wheat and tomatoes,
Firm, fresh staffs of life
Burning, smouldering, dying.
Yeah,
What's the sense?
A zombie of steel with
Round cold tapes looks
But doesn't see, hears
But doesn't listen. A zombie
Of facts and figures eats all
Your details, records them,
Digests them, eating your
Life 'cause it hasn't got
One of its own.
Yeah,
        It's just a waste of time?
There is no reality, just
Statistics. I don't want to
Be another.
Suicide,
        Death by my own hand.
Men in the blue of lost souls will
Come around, shake their
Heads, write it all down.
Men in blue will take my
Life away with them in
Notebooks of someone else's
Sweat, someone's toils, and
Yeah
        I'll feed the machine after
        All.

c. late 1975



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