Ignoramus 7-1-2
by Martin Jack
The rows of widened pupils gather for the hour,
Their teacher powering the interlink, waiting for its tether
Collective knowledge moving from neuron to neuron
Saturating the empty vacuum that lies in-between
Kept free of influence until the tender age
When totalitarian values can carve their way.
The children awaken from their intellectual slumber
Test tube experiments freed from their whim of instinct
Wide grins looking forward to a future
Of administrative challenge in the bland linear offices
Where the personality matrix will be molded
Drill instructors dressed in the uniform of high finance warfare.
There are many schools from which to choose
Many opportunities waiting for the vacuous fetus
In which parental choice will hold reign
Leaflets polluting the spatial highway called education
But there are some incurables amongst us
The foolish and the idiocy delegated by numbers.
7-1-2 lives his life in eternal institution
Forgotten by parents and unforgiving students
His given name long since deleted
For now he is a number along with his ill-educated brethren
Just another genetic statistic for the Center to analyze
An abomination that society winks his prejudicial eye upon.
His plain grey clothes announce his defrocking
For not even brightness wants any part of him
It would prefer to adorn the highest in the land
Instead of the plainest lad, the blandest of the bland
7-1-2 lurches forward in his wooden wheelchair
Dreams of the cosmos, dusted by despair.
His mind's eye winking through the narrow lens of the telescope
Wondering if unconditional love is out there somewhere
Somewhere he might be free
Released forever from the existence of solitary
For humankind he has long since denounced
Unburdened by the possibilities of finding something alien.
His home a prison in which he cannot blossom
And so he waits to be released like the cross-pollination of a flower
But the authorities keep their tightened hold
Inject him with drugs; alkalize his dreams into cerebral mush.
His wheelchair existence continued by hate
And by the attempt to keep his kind at bay
For the racial tension are building, riots instigated
The privileged vs. the dyslexic for control of their fates.
© 1999 Martin Jack
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