Net Charge Separation

Friction gave those promiscuous

Electrons a perfect alibi for deserting their homes

And migrating to more exotic climes

Among us

Those left behind must remain grimly positive

The better to compensate for their most energetic

Neighbors losing their faith, and quitting the temple

Net charge separation

How easily a carefully curated microcosm

Spins into confusion and acrimony

The bored are starving for one thing

Energy, even if it is energetic lying

Meanwhile, the new abode of the electrons

Ours

Accumulates their negative charge

After all, the new neighbors have scandalous gossip

About the naïve inadequacy of their superficially

Positive but desperately quaint and parochial

Former dwelling place

Most of the inhabitants were so beige in their neutrality

It would have taken nothing short of an invasion or

Live, professional wrestling or

An orgy, or a lynching, to drag them out of their

Plush recliners and into the angry damp of the street

Poets, playwrights, political radicals, painters, philosophers

You know them when you see them

Cranks and crackpots and challengers of the dominant

Paradigm in whatever costume it happens to wear

They surged into our neighborhoods and charged them

They pointed out the stain on the priest’s pants

They questioned our right to be either neutral

Or grinning our general positivity through sweat and tears

Got to stay positive, no matter what

The market for sunny cliches and other anesthetics

Is quite robust

You know the type

That tries to shake that puzzle

Back into hostile, perplexed fractions

They disturb the peace in a charming way

That keeps them out of trouble long enough

To make their own

Staging plays, salons, dancing with odd seriousness

Suggesting books and films and songs and

Wistfully rehearsing poems green and tender

As that casual leaf that reminded your cocktail

About how cheap a mint can be

They took a scalpel to their old home

Exposed all the rot inside it for us

Made us gasp and gape and whisper

If the rest of the world is that way

What chance do we have?

We must dig a new moat and spice it with crocodiles

We must be sure that the drawbridge will play hard to get

The ramparts must be as silent in their resilience as faith

Wait

The new neighbors are gathering their things

Shouting at their mates and scooping toys into their arms

They are leaving

Deserting us as they deserted their last, dull home

How dare they?

Do they not realize that this will rob us of this fresh vitality?

They’re full of ominous excuses

Yammering about “neutral charge equilibrium”

As they frantically eye their passports and look for flights

Sounds woke, or some other sort of suspicious weirdness

That is the annoying thing about what we crave

It’s sexy because it is always in motion

They rub everything into disorder, then high tail it

Never static

Electricity