Don't Ask Why -22.06.2009 (draft)

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If the world ever loses its mind,

it will be in India.

It will be in that place
where westerners come seeking ancient wisdom
amongst inadequate sanitation
here for a piece of peace and tranquility
amongst an amazing harmony of...
traffic horns.

If the World ever needs a reality check
it will be in India the incredible
boasting more billionaires,
and impoverished peoples both
than any other nation on Earth.

If this one time a Sikh, a Muslim, Hindu
and an atheist
are sitting around together
and so the atheist says…
is this some sort of joke!
the Sikh will say
no.

But the joke is ever been on you
and you’ll be the only one getting it
laughing yourself
hysterically
cynically
stiltedly
jadedly
fanatically
silly.

What you looking at pal?

Hey don’t mind me
I’m just in India.

If the world ever needs an enema
it will be in India because
no shit
it’s in India that the shit is goin’ down man
and up
and around
and on the walls
the floors,
the fires,
the shit is in the streets
roads
footprints
and it is definitely
definitely, hitting the fan.

If there’s ever a fuse to be blown
street poles each wired like whole phone exchanges
that in other countries might seem a little strange
it just won’t be
be-cause
you’ll be in India.

If you ever had a night angry enough
to spontaneously combust,
you might have had to share sidewalks
with rows of naked children
lain on the pavements
all along the side of street
trying to grab hold of your feet.

If you have ever felt moral outrage
to be so

futile

then you will have survived those screaming contests
between these children and your own so-called conscience
picking the one you could console

It’s all right
it's all right
it's all right
all right?

Even though you know
it’s not
and it’s never going to be.

If you’re ever feeling as filthy
as mud
on dust
on dirt
on mould
in piles of shit
sweated into garbage
covered in mosquitoes
that someone is burning for some lack-of reason
you will be in India, and

You

will be ridiculous.

Enough,
to try to find net a connection
in the middle of major city intersection
your foregone conclusions will not be watching traffic
while walking straight into it
a pedestrian leap of faith
foregoing fail-safes
but its bumper to bumper
and you can’t walk through this

this… traffic?

Unbridled dystopian anarchy
slumped right on the door
of the planets most stifling bureaucracy.

If history can’t explain anything
never again will
and isn’t even trying anymore
if you remember then
why you long ago forgot the point
the point is

that there is no point.

If everything is gonna be fine
but whatever you do don’t look down now
if there was anything that ever
really actually
went wrong
or could
or might
or should-have-but-didn’t
or-should-not-have-but-did-anyway
or won’t-but-watch-out-because-it-still-might
or will but you’ll never know until it's way
way too late
mate,

You never know
it might be
might be…


that you are in India.








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The originally-blogged version of this was prefaced with a short poem from my friend Alex Scott:

"Everybody is gonna call everybody back,
As soon as somebody knows something."
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I decided to remove it this time because I think the opening line stands better on its own now, but I still wanted to note (here) that the tone of this was very much inspired by his piece of writing.

Meanwhile: Got another gig in the pipeworks, which is why I'm here typing instead of being somewhere doing stuff (plus it's cold out). August 1st at the Dan O Connell in Carlton:
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(oh and Jesus, after the near Fitzcarraldean effort it has just taken for me to paste this thing in the right place at the end of the blog, you motherfuckers better show up!)



-Peace.




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