Everyone around me
Is finding
What they’ve always been looking for.
I try so hard not to see what I can’t have
Try so hard to forget
Looking through this easy smile,
I’m bitter, distant and cold.
But when I open the desk drawer of my adolescence
There’s only a broken cigarette case with my name on it,
An empty pack of matches,
One inch of dust,
And that letter you wrote about us,
You know, the one I was never meant to read.
I wish I had never seen it.
I wish you were beside me.
–Jack Blare
Don’t waste time trying on glass suits,
There is a lot of blood,
Scars, & sweeping up to do,
Till eventually you’re as cracked,
Shattered & reflective
As the shards you were made of.
–Jack Blare
The old tricks don’t work anymore.
The antiquated armour has rusted to dust.
The Ancient walls came down
To let emptiness flow in like a river.
I guess this is what its like.
To subside on clichés and handouts.
Revisiting hunched old haunts
An addict’s ghost unable to let go.
Tweaked, torn & twisted, unrecognizable form
No longer trying to fly to mountain peaks,
Just trying to raise my head above the gutter.
–Jack Blare
Depressed, alone, bleeding on the rug.
No memories to reflect on.
No clues about the future.
Sedated, disappointed.
Hollow love’s collapse.
This is not a home; it’s a chemical plant
Thick with sick yellowing gas, throat like grave.
Tired of pretentious sentences, internet impressions.
Disconnect & disappear.
No more soft kisses on the lips.
Now is alone, violent, horrifying, untouched & unspoken.
Guilty nightmares.
–Jack Blare
Poetry has become wrinkles
In the face of a dying old man.
It smokes too many cigarettes,
Drinks too much whisky,
Takes in a bit too much hate.
Unseen in plain sight
Coughing and shambling away alone
To the back alleys & bus stops
Of it’s empty little home.
–Jack Blare
From dust thou art created…
Ashes are clean.
Carbon, like most of the life on earth,
Reforming & reborn again & again
Until the sun swallows the earth.
I’m a man that prefers ashes.
Unlike fire ashes linger.
Though my lights have chosen
To be distant, chill & dim,
I’ve got a coal burning deep down inside.
One day it’s going to be bright enough
One day it will be hot enough,
For just one tiny moment,
To illuminate the earth.
And unto dust thou shalt return.
-Jack Blare
Why are all my heroes either old men
Or dead addicts & suicides?
A question for psychiatrists I guess,
But they think more like I do.
Show us your arms boy
Turn in your brains & pocket change
The animals are getting hungry
Long nights grasp throats with freezing fingers.
Ah, how I love the Dying Season.
–Jack Blare
If everybody has it
Is it still a disease?
Or just human nature?
Is this another sharp prod of the road?
Unexpected shot of uncut intention.
Is the mind playing
The same old dirty tricks again?
Blocked receptors, misfiring signals.
Chemical tricks, shadow psychiatry.
All I know is up alone waiting.
Lonely dog, fool dog
Attracted to heady scents of pain
Reflected from the bright mirror
Of robin egg eyes.
Cravings claw the flesh,
Bite bright holes in that useless soul.
More powerful,
More desperate
Than tortured awful withdrawal.
Confusion craving confusion,
Calling clarity out of mad abstract piece of shit
Called modern life.
–Jack Blare
Finally found the other side of wasted love,
Heartbreak & lies.
After so long apart I felt nothing,
Not hurt, betrayal, affection or desire.
Conversation stilted, forced, dull.
Their stories might be ending
But mine is just beginning.
Happiness is a warm cup
Of numb indifference.
In secret places beneath the full moon
The remains of the damned gather
Lonesome ghosts waltzing
An eternal last dance.
–Jack Blare
There are more than enough resources and more than enough money the world to feed, clothe and house everyone on the planet with more left over. There should be a cap on personal and corporate wealth. No single human being needs more than $10 million dollars and thats setting it high in my opinion. Any more than that should be taken and redistributed to pay for infrastructure and eliminating poverty and homelessness.
I’m not advocating full communism, dictatorship of the proletariat, purges and suppression of human rights but an actual redistribution of wealth. In the West, especially North America we as a society have more than we could ever need, like multiple properties that are vacant for 6 months or more of the year, more cars than people in a household. Massive gated manors while homeless addicts live just on the other side of the walls.
We see privileges as rights and put them ahead of real human rights like clean drinking water for everyone and access to affordable, competent healthcare. Multi million dollar drones are built to explode and sent overseas where they end up hitting the wrong targets and slaughtering civilians. If we put that 5 million into education those deaths wouldn’t occur.
America’s military budget is extremely bloated for what is essentially an ineffective fighting force. The Taliban didn’t have an Air Force, armoured units, tanks, guided missiles or drones and they still took Afghanistan back. Meanwhile factories on the mainland are pumping out tanks that the army is contracted to buy but that generals have no use for because they’re too heavy to transport effectively overseas and would tear apart roads in the country.
Then there are more than several trillion dollars estimated to be hidden by celebrities and other super-wealthy people in offshore tax sanctuaries. Thats more than several times most country’s entire GDP. Capitalism is okay when there are limits put on it but we’re seeing multinational corporations that have more power and influence than most nations in the world. Our politicians are already beholden to lobbyists and campaign donors before they even reach office. Its naive to believe that they’re actually in control. The more money we feed these corporations the more powerful and integrated in society they become until democracy becomes nothing more than a front for corporate interests.
Its becoming more and more clear what needs to happen in order for the world to move forward in a sustainable, humane fashion. The only things holding us back are greed and entitlement. The super-wealthy don’t want to give up their lifestyles even if it means changing or saving thousands of lives. Billionaires might donate a few million to charity which is still less than 1% of their estate and often this saves them money due to tax breaks. Average people are living cheque to cheque just to feed their kids and make rent when even 0.0001% of that billionaire’s money is enough to completely change a life.
When you have the resources and capability to save lives it should be your responsibility to do so. The uneven distribution of wealth is criminal and the system is rigged so that it is easy for the super rich to use their assets to make more money off of the poor or less well-off. Its much harder for a poor person to become a billionaire than for a billionaire to end up poor.
I can’t say how we could bring about this change. Greed and fear keep the wealthy on top, not hard work, skill, moral fortitude or intelligence. They use the greed of the less fortunate against them, paying some a pittance to oppress the others and protect their lives and property. If their enforcers turned on them they’d be done in a matter of days and everyone else, including their lackeys would benefit immensely but greed and fear keep them working for their own oppressors. I’m talking about the police of course, who’s job is ostensibly to protect the public and citizens. Their true function is to serve as the baton of the establishment. Protecting the lives and property of the wealthy while keeping the poor, minorities and socially disruptive elements in check. Someone throws a brick through a Burger King window and they see that as carte blanche to use lethal force. Many people have died just so the cops could protect an empty building.
Either we choose as a society to stand up against inequality and oppression or we are doomed to be nothing more than expendable worker drones supporting a system that values our labour and obedience over our lives. The American Dream was just a dream. The middle class is disappearing entirely. For all our technology and so called advancement we are regressing towards a feudal system. The serfs work their whole lives just to survive, winding up homeless just trying to pay medical bills while the new nobles drink champagne and pay millions of dollars for ten-minute long space flights in even more expensive vehicles. Does that seem like a just, enlightened society or more like pre-revolutionary France?
–Jack Blare, 2021
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