Caffeine Nation

Here is a poem. Just to be clear, I'm not anti-coffee... That's a metaphor (and a drink, as one helpful heckler once pointed out). Hopefully you'll get it...

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Out of bed, only just

Each one all hauling themselves up

Almost falling again stalling stumbling mumbling greetings, seating themselves neatly in the kitchen to await the day’s first buzz

And then it’s up, up and away

And they a-wander down the street completely ready now to face the day

But on the way

There’s one more pause

Mechanic movement of the wallet jaws

Inside a little shop

Statement made with metal and paper swap

Another little fix

Enough to make it to the classroom or the office with a kick

Mid-morning, drooping, energy wanes

They feel the aching hunger pains

The pangs of doubt and rising chilly tide of their impurity impunity

Another cup another hit and gladly numbed, again they sit

Oblivious to the source of it, in counterfeit security immunity

Till lunchtime comes

But another shot amplifies the crumbs, of life on which they passively nibble

Thinking this is all there is- massively little wonder they desire no further fizz although this is, in truth, massively brittle

So on and on the pattern goes

Like a helter-skelter, round we go

But downwards too, little they know

Consumed in caffeination

Afternoon, Dinner, evening too

And at the weekends nothing’s new

For this is simply what we do

Ladies and Gents- the Caffeine Nation

If money makes the world go round and people make the money

Then what keeps people going round? Isn’t it funny

That the money we make and the system and state we constantly perpetuate feeds greed and gives us the Stuff we take

To make it all okay, to numb the pain away

This Caffeine Nation stays awake

Always buzzing… but it’s always fake

Take the drug away and what are we?

An empty shell, in chains, not free- what army!?

Cause coffee money beauty honey sugar ‘sugar’- Stuff- it’s funny but

This system’s oozing losing snoozing runny flimsy fragile faint

As night rolls in and light grows dim

The hurt deep within it makes the demons grin

And this Caffeine Nation lies still hungry, wired, worried and wounded… wide awake.