How delightful are the old warhorses
Satisfaction Magic Flute Sgt Pepper
Tales from the Vienna Woods
Its delicate zither so evocative of a complex culture
The accelerando before and the slight lag after
The second beat of each measure
If properly performed
But that piece was composed
Not for all subjects of the Austrian Empire
Of its complex culture or rather cultures
Which know no stout perimeter
But are permeable and fluxuous
But only for the members of the upper classes
Who live behind big beautiful walls
Who alone enjoy access to sybaritic pleasure
All the artworks we know come from humans alas
Heia jaheia from an antisemite
Lapis Lazuli a tour de force
And an otherwise brisk beautiful poem
With an ugly slur or two
Or robust waltzes from a servant of the rich
Himself arrived to plenteous wealth
Scion of wealthy composers’ family
And nobody should be that rich
And how rich were the employers
Nobody should indulge in foie gras champagne silver services
Crystal chandeliers glittering jewels gorgeous brocades powdered bosoms
While anywhere in the empire a child misses a meal
All roads may lead to Rome
But the road goes both ways
The technical means exist to feed the hungry
Even if we provisionally accept
That the fat years must be regulated to feed the lean
But who does the regulating
Who holds the key
Who bears the sword terrible and swift
And the rod of empire extends the technology of administration
And the emperor is but the chief atop a chain of command
A systemic mechanism abstract and impersonal
And accountable to nobody
Pilate at his ablution
Not to the chamberlains at court
Not to the generals in the field
Not to the officers at every crossroads
All of whom transmit the power of the godking
Not a person but a systemic function
Surrendering personhood to system
And colonizing the personhood of persons
By means of the power to command and control human bodies
To till a field
To build a wall
To gestate a fetus
To staff the workforce
Power transmitted and not merely concentrated
So that persons with the capacity to understand which is all of us
And therefore the capacity to consent which is all of us
Are converted into machinery
With the emperor holding the ignition key
But there’s no stopping an assemblage that rolls like a second nature
And so many empires for so long around the spherey globe
Until billionaires grew more powerful than a nation state
Empire still stands still extends its sway
With plutocrats now as the emperor
Who inherited the godlike scepter
Talking to you Musk you Bezos you Zuckerberg
May you die of shame
And alas to you Jagger and Jay Z and Swift
Noteworthy artists otherwise
Servants arrived to plenteous wealth
But the arts too were absorbed in empire
And culture became an industry
And the great divide obtains
The uneasy interpenetration of system and lifeworld
Between system driven by technology
A world of clockwork the soul of an automaton
And the realm of understanding driven by the will to social comity
The capacity to communicate
A will exercised by primates
But also by colonial algae
By ants with their pheromone telegraphy
Great flocks in bustling skies
Great shoals in mackerel-crowded seas
And the artist once not a separate occupation
See the beauty of ancient tools ancient textiles
Dolmens petroglyphs and cave paintings
Serves time as in mine or galley
And I predict with pride that these pages will never make a dime
For I am sick to puking of the word money
And my little philanthropies
And my little crimes
Are as a single salty teardrop in the mighty ocean
That encircles the spherey globe
But enormous ships brimful of containerized freight
Traverse that ocean
And other vessels those airways those Roman roads
Thus the technical means exist to feed the hungry
And Musk and Bezos could arrange free shipping
For the destitute the displaced the dispossessed
What matter if they’re in Sudan or at the southern border
And Zuckerberg could spare a therapeutic dime
For the children whose minds he has poisoned to death
Defiling the sacrament of image
Astronautical tourism pah
Hear ye gluttons ye sybarites
The parents of a starving child
Will do everything in their meager power
To break your lock and shatter your sword
Let us hope they are comfortable those billionaires
Cringing behind their walls with their bodyguards their sycophantic entourages
Their toadies in the halls of government
Or drifting aboard their superyachts their space capsules
Colonize Mars pah
Try on earth to squeak by on nine hundred ninety-nine million nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents
You heartless criminals
Let us all hope that in a moment of leisure during your busy busy day
You will find the time to look inside yourself
Find there the shame that you have anesthetized
Find there the moral agent you have put to sleep
And may shame rise up and choke you awake