Sanity in Numbers

by Dmitri Lineton

A ship carrying a diseased cargo
the outcasts of centuries
society has no place for them.

Adrift, mad like cyclones
with psychic storms that ravage
and destroy the sanctuary of reason's calm

They are lost like sailors
after shipwreck has ruined
their shattered, seasmashed vessels

Marooned on solitary isles
they are haunted by dark shapes
that infest shadows on lonely nights.

Time has seen them struck by lightning
that magicians have conjured
in an age of technology, to shock

Them out of fear and brooding
fry them free of the chaos
that threatens like a whirlpool

With vertigo and engulfing water.
Chemicals are put into
their minds to keep them safe

And sane as lotus eaters
who while away the days
in a quiet, drugged trance

But yet who knows how
to help them regain normality
when it recedes continually.

A horizon where the setting sun
never dyes with the same
colours and clouds twice

And time treats custom
like a chameleon of conformity,
there is sanity in numbers.

 

This poem is taken from Total Cardboard issue 6, and remains under copyright. For more information see www.totalcardboard.com