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I wish we had x-ray vision politically-correct color blindness only envisions shades of gray this bland and boring cortical masquerade disguises the aquarium of colors that contains the celebrity of our skins I have never seen a black man or a white woman as the purity of these spokes on the color wheel appear transparent and empty like phantoms without a spectrum of thought and feeling without the explosive essence of stars We appear as reflections of Gaia's body we drink of nature's nectar and radiate her charms soft yellows, browns, peaches, tans, and reds when cold we turn blue like the depths of her oceans when hot we blaze red like her fiery core we grow pale when frightened become green with envy pink when embarrassed and even glow after a great lay or filling meal I wish we had x-ray vision red to violet mantra of restriction prohibits our peeking beneath the surface where the heart harrumps where lungs expand and contract with life the similarities of the biological landscape bulldozed by the rainbow's mind-trap we supplant the ignorance of our natural similarities with ethnic, religious, and economic similarities synthetic semantic inventions of our culture language generates ideology systematically dismantles our intelligence alphabetical dogma encapsulates perspective tunes out the static of a dreamscape of diverse and unique experience diction paralyzes judgment in narrow-minded views and ideologists fear, hate, denounce others who challenge their bankrupt ontology their isms curse humanity with doctrines replace mythology with orthodoxy conservatism nationalism patriotism imperialism social Darwinism racism capitalism fascism communism ethnocentrism identification with vapid creeds slavery to ideology that spawns the righteousness and revenge of empire a television zombie world of marketed control logos slogans theme music continuously running ticker tape of Huxleyian hypnopaeda to tantalize the senses to memorize the parochial ritual to harmonize the zombies along with the fife and drum of the state who has control? who has control? who has control over your reality selection? i wish we had x-ray vision · · · · · ·
Resources Poetry on Swans Scott Orlovsky is a World History & Cultures, and an American History teacher at Clifton High School in New Jersey. He has a BA in History from the Johns Hopkins University and a MA in History from the University of Colorado. Orlovsky's writing has appeared in the Greenwich Village Gazette and he regularly contributes his columns to Swans. Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this article on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting a few paragraphs or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work on the Web. © Scott Orlovsky 2003. All rights reserved. |
This Week's Internal Links
Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth - by Michael Parenti
Kimberly Blaker's The Fundamentals of Extremism - Book Review by Gilles d'Aymery
America's Nuclear Weapons Labs: The Reality Beneath The Headlines - by Manuel García, Jr.
Perception - by Richard Macintosh
Paradoxical System - by Milo Clark
Muck And Mire - by Phil Rockstroh
Founding Father's Formula Fulfilled - by Philip Greenspan
I Want To Go Home - by Alma A. Hromic
No More Posse Comitatus - Poem by Gerard Donnelly Smith