The Ones Who

for Michael Bérubé

Hello in 2010 this is the poem
This is the poem
That argues (isn't that annoying?)
They were the ones who walked away
From Omelets no Omelas stupid story
There was a perfect city and
There was an imprisoned child and
The first depended on the other
The child can't really talk		"feeble-minded"
You know how that goes, don't you?
You know how that goes in stories
They're always sweet angels or perfect sad cases
And at the end some people walk away
They walk away from Omelets		little oubliettes
		every village has one
Where do they walk to, these good people?
The author can't describe that place it must
Exist oh yes the world being Omelas would
"It is possible that it does not exist"
But they know where they are going, do they?
The world being Omelas would be
When you leave a place you find another place
Just like the first		not that hard to say
The world being would be		go around, return to start
		do nothing, you do your part
		you can't walk away
The world being Omelas, no, omelets
No one got that big O after all
We have lots of broken eggs. All over!
We make that omelet every day
Middle-aged people with children
Like you and me, that's what we do
If we didn't try to say "Look, a broken person!"
"There's been a break!" then those deaths would
Be for nothing
It would be
A waste
		The transformation of waste is perhaps the oldest
The transformation of waste		pre-occupation of man
There must be a way to take the remains
And make it whole (again?)
And make them whole again
Oh shit
Here's how the second story goes
And it's even true!
Once there was a country (and we know,
We know better than to say exceptional)
But a country in which some suspects were
Prosecuted justly. It was back in 2001
that there were 2 million people in prison
Back in 2001 that prosecutors tried
terrorists justly
and two years later six hundred thousand
genuine and legitimate! There was credibility
and integrity, then there was a radical break		two years later we built a mountain
That hasn't been fixed but we can		of six hundred thousand skulls
Yes we can
They were good people, the prosecutors
And did good, civilian trials are good,
And that's what goodness means in an omelet
It means that you can make more good omelets
And all of us would like to be good
And that's what good does it makes it good
For the people who say that we are good
And since we are good		can't stop cooking, can't step back
We can build a city on a mountain		eggs arrive, already cracked
		making omelets, nowhere to turn
		all you can do is LET IT BURN
No, we can't let it burn
The fire if it comes would be darkness not light
And anyways, middle-aged people with children,
We may not be good but we persist
We're not allowed to give up
		the transformation of waste
So yes the transformation of waste
People like the lie that once we were good
Before the break and so we will tell that lie
And maybe that will get them to be good
The living are more important than the dead
Well, the woman I knew from El Salvador
Isn't really dead but whatever!
I'll go and say that once America didn't torture
Or rather that we didn't torture openly and
Formally and perhaps that made a difference
To her when she heard the head torturer
Speaking English-accented Spanish
And I'll go spit on the grave of a Salvadoran child
(Well not the grave, they never found the body)
Who was tortured (more tolerably?) by proxy
What's a little spit?		yeah, you and what spitting army
Well.
That's a problem.
Does anyone really care what we say?
The One who matters says America doesn't torture
And that's how it is		the first lie of Omelas: there's somewhere to go
		the second is that these are children, you know
Does it matter what we say?
We aren't rescuing children
They aren't children in our prisons
(Well yes some of them are) but the bad scary
Terrorists that our America depends on
That America depends on to make us feel good
Are doing what people always do in prison,
Or when they hide out in the hills somewhere,
People who can talk: they are writing,
Writing that our system is unjust
And I think that they don't really care about
Our noble, useless spit
Or are we lying for America, for "us"?
I'd rather not lie then kthxbye
The third story is mine I don't see why not
Poetry in the first person is annoying but it is mine
why should I care about truth		the truth will never really set you free
and the lying homilies we tell about truth		it's what you do that matters, not what you see
		see what you like as long as you're yoked
My daughter's 1st grade teacher waves an		and speaking truth to power is a joke
American flag for the class, teaches a song
And my daughter sings John Lennon's "Imagine"
At the music festival two massive lies all lies
You can say there are dreamers, they are not
The only ones, but there are so many more
People dreaming approvingly
Of hellscapes she could not even imagine
I lie to her too
I tell her that things are basically going O.K.
Maybe when she's older
I'll tell her that there was a radical break
Just before she was born
When we formally approved of torture
And there's still the hope of fixing it		not even Obama can strangle hope
Why should I care? It's a hobby I guess. Like		no this is a lie too why not admit
Science fiction. Not everyone has to like it.		there don't seem to be many chances at all
		since no one knows what will make the thing fall
		might as well not be lying when standing in shit
		since none of us knows what the future will bring
"Freedom never existed		I can still be attached to true naming of things
And there's even less of it now"
Freedom is what we take, or make
While we frolic around the junk pile		memories of garbage cans and
It's not what we're given, formally		memories of garbage
Not in Omelas
If one of us sees someone about to be thrown
To Moloch then sure, say any lie you like
About how we used to not throw people
To Moloch quite in that way
(Yes not formally a lie, formally true)
And if it works, great!
The living are more important than the dead
We are the people who persist
We never give up		Did this poem work? Was my sense preserved?
But the omelets are still being made afterwards		America, you get the fucking poets you deserve
And I don't think it's a contrradiction		I don't have the time for any more tries
To say that someone was saved from the frying		Even the best of us can only apologize
With our talk of fair trials this once		When my kids ask what I did in this time
But really we'd be better off without it		I'll say that I laughed and made a stupid rhyme