The Painless Way
A song by Paul Hall.
It was written in Brisbane, Australia in 1986. In this poem which I later put to music as a song, I warn about contemporary civilization's preoccupation with illusion and situations of make-believe and indulgence in a false sense of security. Here I communicate my outrage at the tragedy of those societies that, for such reasons as mercantile control or collective parental unconcern, have removed their people's ability to cope with harsh realities by constantly enshrouding them, from childhood up, in illusion and fantasy leaving whole populations with the inability to deal with real problems life will throw at them.
Copyright by Paul Hall, 1987.
The energies of restlessness
they argued back and forth.
And some spoke of intolerable.
And some spoke of their dearth.
But most wore but a uniform
of forgetfulness and spurn
where folk go to oblivion
and never to return.
Tell me,
why did you bring up
your children
along your painless way,
When you KNEW they'd be
all unprepared when life
will have full sway?
Oh, they will not forget
your false kindness
was only
revenge and hate
when they go
on the endless paths
and return --
and return --
return but all too late.
The mindless, tragic blunder
of what seems to be good
is useless in a future
where folk misunderstood
that the only preparation
was to take things
day by day
thus, beyond death's dungeon,
the mindless pass away.
Tell me,
why did you bring up
your children
along your painless way,
When you KNEW they'd be
all unprepared when life
will have full sway?
Oh, they will not forget
your false kindness
was only
revenge and hate
when they go
on the endless paths
and return --
and return --
return but all too late.
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Paul A. L. Hall
Copyright © 2003 [Paul Hall]. All rights reserved.
email: poetry@paulhallart.com