Globalization Part V

"A culture is not a collection of relics or ornaments,
but a practical necessity, and its corruption invokes calamity.
A healthy culture is a communal order of memory...
It reveals the human necessities and the human limits.
It clarifies our inescapable bonds to the earth and to each other."


Wendell Berry
~~


A flat world
is a chaos of clones.


In a flat world
all is homogeneous
and servile
to its agreements.


The maxim of survival
is adapt, lest
ye shall succumb.


Thus follows
unreasoned acts
by man.


Ages past the notion
of a flat world
out of ignorance
or postulate,
was used to suppress
and control.


In a flat world
group agreement trumps
the individual, no matter
how learned or competent.


But even
in a flat world
there comes to be
one who rises
above the chaos
with opened eyes
sees the actual world.
~~


It had been another
sleepless night for Chad,
tossing and turning
between inner screams,
while stewing in agony
the same question-
"How could things go so wrong?"


A voice finally answered,
"Just wait it out. You'll get
what you want once the bulls
retake the market."


Chad was vulnerable,
afraid things would
only get worse.
He desperately wanted
to believe the hidden voice.


It seemed much easier
to compromise. Just pick up
where he'd left off, continuing
to wait tables until
Wall Street rebounded
and all would be
as he'd dreamed.


But, alas, he knew
the map had been wrong,
not only for himself
but so many others.


Chad had learned one lesson
in a flat world-
there's no guarantees
save the moment.


There was no turning back.
to trust the evil
that knows not
the meaning of trust.


"I've come too far,
seen your degradation
and felt your pain and despair!"
Chad blasted back at the voice.


Suddenly,
the lump in the throat
and the nausea
in his stomach blew.


There was a shift
in Chad's beingness
he didn't understand
just yet.


But something changed.


A throwing off of chains
and shackles, no longer
fettered by fear, lifted
from sinking mire
of shifting sands
to walk straight and tall
one's chosen path,
a free, determined
man.


Demand for improvement
welled up inside of Chad
fomenting as if ready
to gush from his pores
like a volcano poised
to change forever
the face
of Earth.
~~


A flat world
is a fixed and
false idea.

It is a lie.

As all lies
it vanishes
in the light
of Truth.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.

Globalization Part IV

Chad awoke from restless sleep.
"Was I dreaming?" he asked himself.
The tall weeds
of the vacant steel plant
flashing before his eyes
as if the homeless ghosts
had followed him home.


The ruins of Bethlehem Steel
were just as much
his ruin.


Neither the lump
in his throat,
nor the nausea
in his stomach
would go away.


A feeling akin
to being run over
and knocked unconscious
with slight glimpses
of reality that seemed
to float in and out
like a wild dream.


Being lost
in a scorching desert
dumfounded by phantasms
real but surreal,
or suddenly finding yourself
in a place unknown, unsure
of your identity.


Or retribution
for having lived
with closed eyes
and the only being left
while all else is cast asunder,
the only heart left beating,
the last lungs breathing,
and made to watch
as the world perishes
before the eyes.


Made to witness every death,
feel every pain,
suffer every sorrow.


Unable to change
what was or had been.
Unable to escape
the sufferings so wicked
and so indescribable
that only Hell could be
its likeness.


Realizing,
though seeming too late
and not knowing where to turn,
Chad realized he was
unwitting effect
of the vicissitudes
of a flat world.


And by his own agreements
was left to stew
in its fiery juices.


The total effect
of ruined existence.
~~


A flat world
has no mountaintops
to touch the Heavens.


It is a
one-terminal
universe.


In a flat world
there's only
Hell.
~~


Chad was at his wits end.
"My God!" he thought aloud.
"How in heavens could
things get worse?"


No sooner the thought,
Chad felt the vice-grip
of fear closing in
round his throat.


His pulse quickened
to the pounding
of his wearied heart.


There was no plan
to make things different.
No road map to guide
him away from the maw
of the abyss.


All that he'd counted on
was useless to him now,
for the stable datums
with which he had aligned
his life were but
shadows and decoys
and bobby traps designed
to further contagion
of a flat world.


Chad's mind screamed out
for an answer.
But none came.


He screamed louder and louder
as if possessed
by the homeless demons
or the very Devil himself.


Chad shut his eyes tight
as if to wish away
the agony and freight.


But it grew stonger
as all viruses do,
ever changing,
ever adapting
to reach its ends.


"A thousand times better", he thought
just to give up the ghost
than to endure the fear
of fearing to meet
oblivion.


Chad was consumed
by the throes
of worsening.
~~


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.