Distance Poem by Ali Rahimi

Distance



What is the meaning of life?
Why do we feel such an aimlessness, emptiness?
Kids go to ISIS, DAESH, escape their families,
Feel like social misfits, eccentric mavericks,
Disconnected with boring social harmony,
Tired of materialism, conventions, norms and legality,
Bored with parental alienation, suffer attachment disorders,
Emptiness, loneliness, the outcome is dysfunctional families, social rejection,
Spanish civil War, Second World War, collective alienation,
Crusades and witch-hunt,
Soldiers feel alienated, self-sacrifice for common good, to de-alienate,
They deny their own interests, seeking out ideal satisfaction,
Our lives are full of spiritual voids, manifested as
Mental alienation, political alienation, social alienation, ideological alienation,
No integration, no common values,
Distance, Distance, Distance
All we see is isolation, powerlessness, normlessness, meaninglessness,
Self-estrangement, mental disturbances,
States have rendered man alien to himself,
They lose themselves in struggle for survival,
Losing the real existence in search of subsistence,
Food, water, clothes, shelter,
Or just bread and butter,
This is no true happiness, only illusory happiness,
Man is riddled with angst, despair, suffers form anxiety and apathy,
These are the consequences of modernity,
Hell is other people, hell is the other people,
A masochist human desire to limit perception of others,
Conflicts between conscious and subconscious minds,
Cut off from God, the faithful,
Or a metaphysical sense of contemplation, concentration and union,
With self, with nature,
A lot of you hate the norms society does not care for,
Have you got a tendency to adopt a compromise?
Do you feel maladjusted? Discarded?
Are you in quest of Utopia, Dream World, the Cure-all?
If you are alienated, you are easy to be indoctrinated,
You are vulnerable, susceptible to all nasty propaganda,
They give you the cause, the incentive, the aim you are thirsty for,
And you go for it, jump at the opportunity,
Come join us! Belong to the brotherhood, belong to Fraternity,
Welcome to the Riot Club, welcome to the Cult,
Difficult to conform to the norm?
But they are exciting, amazingly adventurous,
They are not hazy, clear are their rules, so you need to fit in,
Happily grasping the spiritual self-worth,
Material gain, sex, power, attention, instant gratification,
You can release the pent-up emotions, emit the repressed feelings,
General public does not give a damn,
Distance, Distance, Distance,
Politicians churn out lies and bullshit,
The mass guzzles them happily,
Post-modern information overload, data tsunami,
You are segregated from mainstream powerful society,
You don't belong, you don't belong, you are excluded,
Cold war, and migrants from Eastern Europe,
Incompatible values and beliefs, unfulfilled expectations,
Self-estrangement, you become a stranger to yourself,
Manifestation of Hamlet, Achilles in the Iliad, Brave New World,
The Catcher in the Rye, The Stranger, Waiting for Godot,
The wasteland, yes wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
We are all Vladimir and Estragon,
Waiting in vain at the leafless tree,
Begging for chicken bones or money,
Or lucky to have no expectations,
We are inert, sluggish and restless,
We are forgetful, grateful, and hopeful,
A mass suffering from Alzheimer's disease, collective oblivion, mental anguish,
The ruling oligarchs keep us passive and ignorant,
Futility of human existence, man waiting for salvation, salvation, salvation,
We are players in the theater of the absurd,
Distance, Distance, Distance

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