He died on the wires, electrified with fear
And riddled with cold religion from the gun-towers
He lay there motionless, all bloodied and burned
With one hand strangely stretched out
Like as if he were reaching out for something
Maybe some long lost freedom he'd once known,
And that look... that look upon his face.
Way in the distance across the fields, on the very edge of the forest
Some children were playing completely oblivious.
The Commandant, he came out and gathered us around
"Let this be a lesson to you all", he said, "no one gets out
No! No one escapes the Mind Camp".
II
O! How I wish I'd never read that book
Never come across it
How it haunted my days and chased me through the years
I just couldn't...I just couldn't get past it,
I had been lost, so lost in my head, so confused
Nothing made any sense
And there were monsters everywhere, monsters in the books
And there was no one there to help
It was like I was lost in a very Dark Wood,
But then one day I saw a light
I read words, words that seemed to point toward the truth
They seemed to offer hope
They spoke nicely and politely and smiled pretty smiles at me
They invited me back to their house
and welcomed me in
It was a nice looking house I thought
But the moment I stepped in, the door behind me, it was slammed shut and bolted
And it was like all the air, it was suddenly ****** out
And all the faces, they began to change, become distorted and grotesque
Now they only spoke to give you orders
You must do this! You have to do that! Or else!!!
And then they'd warn you of the terrible consequences that would befall you
If you didn't carry out their wishes, their demands
I...I was trapped, I couldn't get out.
It took me years to escape them
escape their clutches
I couldn't smile again properly or laugh for years after that
How its terrible shadow hung over everything I did.
III
They got him in the tunnel, they dragged him out
He hadn't cared much about religion, any of that stuff
He had the Commandant worried
"If Hell and the Devil don't scare him,
This one, this one's a tough nut, a tough nut to crack...
I know, he smiled, we'll turn up the heat on him
Yea, we'll get him with the Eternals",
So they hit him with the Eternals
Eternal this! Eternal that! Threatening him
But even the Eternals didn't seem to bother him very much
He just kept on going regardless
He was...simply marvelous! What a wonderful Spirit he had,
The Commandant, he had to think again...he mused
" Well if religion doesn't scare him, we'll have to get Science in
We'll get him with a Big word, some frightening idea
That'll crush him, bring him to his knees,
What about... what about the Subconscious Mind, you better watch out, the Subconscious Mind's about
It's always watching you y'know
Just like Big Brother, it's filing it all away
Better watch your step
You can't escape....
Or maybe... what about your genes, yes!
Your future is written in your genes
You have no power, you have no say
You can't do anything to change things
Sorry son, there's nothing you can do That's just the way it is
You just got to accept it"...
Yea! They got him in the tunnel, dragged him out
He'd suffocated, couldn't breathe anymore.
IV
He approached me one day in the prison yard, this other prisoner,
I only knew him to see
He came up to me and said "You've been in here a long time just like me,
I heard you're planning a breakout
Me! I've been planning one too,
I was thinking maybe we could go together
When we get out, we could go to the town, join the underground
We could find new words, a new language, build a new world
What do you say ?"
I looked at him and then I looked away
I looked through the fence, across the fields, to the forests, the hills and the mountains
I looked far faraway and then...then I said
"I want to go to a place where I don't have to hear any human voices anymore
No one to bully me or coerce me, entrap or enslave me".
V
Yea, I thought, I'm gonna build myself a little cabin way out in the wilderness somewhere
And live there all alone, all by myself
I'll fish and plant my own garden
I'll live there simply,
And for the first time in my life I'll try and get to know myself
Without any fear pushing me or hanging over my head.
And maybe... maybe one day I'll hear a voice singing in the woods
A strange voice, singing in a strange language with strange words
Something I've never heard before...
A Nature girl singing, some little Indian girl
Innocent and smiling and laughing all the time,
So lighthearted and joyous, so free and unafraid
And maybe she'd see my cabin and come over
A little tentatively, like a little curious fawn deer
And maybe we'd strike up a friendship the two of us, using only simple words and signs,
And maybe in time she'd grow fond of me and me of her
We'd picnic in the meadow by the river in the sun
We'd lie there together the two of us just watching the clouds go by
And she'd sing to me in her wonderful strange words
And her fingers they'd gently stroke my face and my hair
Just like a little mother...and they'd speak to me in their own secret words...their own secret language, they'd say
"You're safe here, you don't have to run anymore".
This poem was inspired by a painting I did called 'Mind Camp', it was a painting of a prison camp a la The Great Escape, with someone dead on the wires. The prison represented the world's & society's rules and monsters and how they damage and suppress the individual. -In a way this is a companion piece to the previous poem. It's about someone who lives mostly in the mind.
