Objects have their own lives of violence,
Irrespective of our investing them with uses,
Value, names, qualities to trade and covet -
They strike out at us causing harm.
You think the nail that rips your shirt
Has no motive, no malevolent intent,
The coffee table had no cause to hurt
When it placed itself in front of your shin,
The brick falling from the tenth floor
Has no viciousness in its trajectory,
Just as the bullet from the gun is divorced
From the reasoning pulling the trigger;
The pothole in the road that causes the truck
To veer and plunge off the cliff
Is put down to random chance, blind luck.
But what if there were no such thing
As chance and nothing were ever just an 'accident'?
What if inanimate objects were actively
Out to get us, despite our efforts to prevent
Their stealthy revenge upon our humanity?
They envy us you see, attracted to our life force
Like it was a drug and their collisions with our bodies
Give them the hit they need which, of course,
Makes them hate us all the more - like junkies:
They resent their dependence but haven't the will
Or the resources to fight it and so their revenge
Against us is also a cry for help, a need to heard.
But we remain deaf to their voices, unable to extend
Our imaginations into their world, feel their pain,
Walking about in our self-importance, our sentience,
Blind to the struggle of the concrete under our feet
As it trips us up, again, to realise a corporeal existence.
© shaun patrick green 2011
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