Stroking pussycats

Conscience; a dull word that pulls at us
In the goldfish bowl of our energetic little lives,
Where we jostle and shimmy as elegantly as
clapping seals watching speech bubbles pop,
Slowly clogging ourselves with our own shit,
Waiting hopelessly for someone else
To clean us from within.

Narcoleptic necrophiliacs must have an awfully difficult time of it,
Each step closer to their dumbstruck sex-toy
Another journey away from themselves,
From the methane of their unsleeping mind,
Where any snatches of joy are so shortlived
That when they enter the abyss in a top hat
They promptly fall asleep on the job.

And what of our leaders who believe in themselves
With such undeniable force
That in the breathlessness of routine
they forget what it was that they believed in,
Their night-times spent lipstuck to the mirror
As their eyes wonder back to the past,
where the warm tears they shed,
The tears shared in dorms of doom,
Were the breaking of clouds
Cast by the ghosts they feared most,
The life they were certain they would have
Ripped out of them by blacked-out housemasters,
There to teach them the lessons
Their fathers handed down to them.

How awful that behind every decent new law,
The tweekers are always there to squeeze and suck
every last bit of goodness they can from it,
to confound and scatter to the wind
the stupid, ridiculous, childish dreams
that we may have had in hoping
that the prospect of change may be upon us.

So we must muddle along,
Keep clammy and cobble along,
Look to our own and the car in the drive,
Grateful, unfazed, and spiritually empty,
Because the show must go on,
Stroking pussycats and walking dogs,
Sucking ciggies and filling holes,
wishing we were back in the womb,
safe from the crashes and wallops.