Eating Words

Eating Words On my way to the gym to shape my well nourished body I travel a whole Universe of madness from leafy suburbs high walls electric fences barbed wire marble statues and well manicured lawns a distasteful reminder of opulence within self imposed ghettos that shelter fortress’ denial Tin roofs over crowded abodes rest shaky on crumbling walls where the ‘fortunate ones’ live with cover over heads and they float past and of course I must watch the roads not to get carried away by distraction and too much unpleasant reflection from the mirrors inside me the prisms of wealth Ghandi comes to mind Karl Marx and the Buddha a slim one not the laughing kind with round hips and satisfied fat belly revolution opium for the masses passive painful resistance Black Consciousness Nelson Mandela’s long road to freedom Orwellian animals more equal than others mattering more I’m almost there for my training aerobic and muscles when hawkers and beggars ply their trade at the traffic lights in tune with car exhausts breathing a different air of pollution than I on the treadmill sweating air conditioned push ups the barefoot children showing resilience have not yet given up A few coins here and there a sandwich an orange and the odd Rand bill to lighten my load on a good day when the conscience takes over takes me under the radar of guilty complexion buying freedom from too many thoughts eating chipping away taking from plate and the template of my mind Being mindful when I emerge from my vehicle is written on the sounds of cacophonic silence as my path takes a route to that privileged work out through cheap happy music blasting my ears past the shops in the mall cosmetics electronics designer clothes designer dreams Gucci and Prada temples of greed Only when the final tree last mall has been felled and the ice bergs have vanished scorched earth scorching sun has fried up our skins when the worship of dollars has accomplished the sign of delusion when the shops and the palaces have run out of fancy steam cynical music abundance of neon odorous crime Only when only where just within and without might I choke see sensible sense stop rationalization that am doing enough when I think philosophy politics history without acting upon it when the tin roofs and barely clothed paupers the thinly veiled hunger for more falls on its sword will I notice that I cannot eat mammon that I’m eating their food and they cannot eat my words 24th August 2016