a merry little trip through mordor

looking around, i see something
rather sickening, and get that feeling
deep in the pit of my stomach
(the one you get from aircraft turbulence
or too much red curry in your lunch)
about the wrongness of things;
the centre simply cannot hold,
things are disjoint and disjoined
the illusion of seamlessness
because the particles in our heterogeneous mixture
have been reduced, reduced, reduced–
atomized to small for us to see at all,
and everywhere (even a shopping mall)
it seems like sam and frodo’s trip through mordor
choking on the fumes, the bleakness, the desolation
unable to drink the putrid water
or stomach the ash-caked bread
and i wonder: was there something else, instead?
remembering the lives that came before
and the bountiful ages of their forgotten lore
where the bright prince promised so much
(and delivered it, though we’ve forgotten
not only where the treasure is burried
but what the treasure even is)–
yet what we are left with is this…
this sick sad sorrow, this desperate hope for change tomorrow
and are willing to sacrifice even our souls
because the path we’re on is so hopeless

and the sad irony is, the real answer is still there
just waiting for us.