The Battle of Futility
The battle’s warming up
In the game no-one can win.
Snake eyes and lotteries
But the winnings mighty thin.
Wearily we are bound;
Time-out in Tom Tiddler’s ground,
Where the storm resounds
And the future’s looking grim.
I never knew it was a war
Nobody ever said.
I never knew the score
Or the bounty on my head.
We played it for fun
But the truth was always more.
A game of two halves;
Not just between rich and poor.
The battle’s always raging –
Survival of the fittest.
As assassins take aim
Leaders draw up their hit list.
What drives a man to distraction?
Is it love? or is it meaning?
To win at all costs
To lead – despite the keening.
I never knew it was a war
Nobody ever said.
I never knew the score
Or the bounty on my head.
It’s a game of many layers
Played on a cosmic level.
With gods and armies, books and guns,
An imaginary devil.
Peeling back the skins
To find there’s nothing there.
But they just want to win
They do not want to share.
I never knew it was a war
No-one ever said.
I never knew the score
Or the bounty on my head.
Opher – 12.7.2024
From this great age I can survey the casualties. My friends fall like chaff.
We started out joyously with such high ideals.
We found our battles for love, for art, for meaning and we were mangled in the machine, shredded in the daily grind.
We look out at the imbeciles driving the lemmings over the cliffs. All with their different reasons. All with the same affliction – megalomania.
Some use politics, some religion, but it all ends up in the same place.
There are so many battlefields on so many levels.
The battle field of fun;
The battle field of reason;
The battle field of power;
The battle field of wealth;
The battle field of art;
The battle field of belief.
All consumed in the great pyre of treason!
Our brains are too big for our bodies.
Our egos too big for the planet.