The Downtrodden

Where there are dreams hiding in the bushes
shaking in fear of being found;
fugitives from the soul on its eternal quest for peace,
the landscape shudders with pain.

Where innovation sits becalmed on an endless ocean,
disappearing within a grey and choking haze,
an outcast, exiled to the periphery without parole,
progress drowns in non-stop rain.

Where happiness clings desperately to the cliff’s edge,
scrabbling for purchase on crumbling rocks,
discarded, surplus to the requirements of the inner circle,
contentment evaporates in harsh disdain.

Where compasses fail to work,
where maps no longer show the way,
where success is measured in arrogance
and few will dare to complain.

Here lie the downtrodden, the cattle,
milked to exhaustion and prodded ever forward,
whipped into line with bureaucratic gusto,
no matter how cruel, no matter how insane