Music: Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight
Speaker: Tom O' Bedlam (SpokenVerse)
Full poem:
Old grey-haired waitresses
In cafes at night
Have given it up,
And as i walk down sidewalks of light
And look into windows of nursing homes
I can see that it is no longer with them.
I see people sitting on park benches
And i can see by the way they sit and look
That it is gone.
I see people driving cars
And I see by the way
They drive their cars
That they neither love nor are loved -
Nor do they consider sex.
It is all forgotten
Like an old movie.
I see people in department stores and supermarkets
Walking down aisles
Buying things
And i can see by the way their clothing
Fits them and by the way they walk
And by their faces and their eyes
That they care for nothing
And that nothing cares for them.
I see a hundred people a day
Who have given up entirely.
If I go to the racetrack or a sporting event
I can see thousands that feel for nothing
Or no one
And get no feeling back.
Everywhere I see those who
Crave nothing but food, shelter, and clothing;
They concentrate on that,
Dreamlessly
I do not understand why these people do not
vanish
I do not understand why these people do not
expire
Why the clouds do not murder them
Or why the dogs do not murder them
Or why the flowers and the children do not murder them,
I do not understand.
I suppose they are murdered
Yet i can’t adjust to the
Fact of them
Because they are so many.
Each day,
Each night,
There are more of them
In the subways and
In the buildings and
In the parks
They feel no terror
At not loving
Or at not
Being loved
So many many many
Of my fellow creatures
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