The Owner's Coming

It costs me more

In terms of time, and wealth

As if there is a difference

To get my government issued identification

Than it did before

Despite the fact that those in power

Over what some call a democracy

Yell about freedom and independence

A leaner, more efficient state apparatus

An owner's manual intelligible by the owned

Considerate of their liberty and autonomy

Whenever they are being recorded

Even by the emissaries of the owned

Few as they are in number

Some still get it, as they watch

What the owners do, when they think they are unobserved

Or ignored, because something better is on elsewhere

They bark loudly and distinctly

We can't allow the owners to get away with murder, after all

We give them everything we can do without and still survive

In more or less plush surroundings

We ought to remember

That we were communicating

Long before we could get it down

The noise that made the world behave that way

At least the fraction of it we had power enough

To change

An oral culture

Unsophisticated technology

Legendary minds

Some telling stories

That should be universally known

But here we are

Many who can be owned, body and soul

Do as they are told

Telling the owned what to do in their own words

Even playing them onstage!

On behalf of the owners

So they will know

What to do

With whom, for whom

What it costs

What it pays

For how long

Where?

Wearing what?

Saying what?

Doing what?!

Thinking what?!

The last is hard to manage

But the research is interesting

And technology is divine

So my government identification

Costs more

It must be renewed every five years

It can be renewed online

But not after it has expired

Which is Room 101 bureaucracy

Sure, we can put that leg back together, good as new

Unless it's been cut off

Then, things get a bit more complicated

Slower

More painful

More expensive

You understand

Bite down on this

Owners want more freedom, that is sincere

Freedom for the owners, from the owned

Most owners know how much it sucks to get owned

That's why they got into politics, or entertainment

Commanding attention while working, or playing

There are only two positions

You know which one you are in

How much do you enjoy what you do?

How much do you enjoy what they do to you?

How often do they do it to you, and how hard?

Is it a job, or a hobby?

How much work does it take

To make it enjoyable?

How many people

Do you tell what to do

Such that, if they do not do it right away

With some style and grace

They will be eaten by the starving street

You are the owner of some of the time

And the work of other hands

Those hands, never out of yours for long

They are only valuable to you

If they can allow you to get through the day

Without a polite request for your assistance

With a small problem with the owned

Who must do as you say

Or hope, one day, to do so

Should their faith and their attention

Belong to you, when channels change

Whoever delivers your speeches

Nothing in them will differ

From what your will has written

For them, faithfully, to say

Some actually think it, too

The gospel of the greedy

Swept away by the scripture of a scratching, clawing need

For more

However they are measuring

Regardless of whether or not it can run away

Freely, for a while, every now and then

To just do, and think and say

Whatever it likes, even about its owners

And the ludicrous masks of their emissaries

Word of mouth

Smooth, good ideas spread

When the owners are distracted or the owned are

Ignored, because something better is on elsewhere

Even if they can't read, the owned can bark at one another

Those really are the days

When the owners have it out on screens, everywhere

Mostly theater, but some real blood

Never shed by the director

Always by the cast

You know the demographics

They hired people to tell me

That if I chose to make them emissaries of the owners

A golden day would follow, which the owned would smile and polish

And share all of the goodly spoils thereof

But the owners and their emissaries

Were lying to me

Doing as their owners bid

As all who are obedient and owned must do

So here's what happens, while I wait for my identification

Proof that I am who I seem, take the owners' manual for it

The owned must pay more for things they need

Which means many will not get them at all

Or it will cost them dearly to secure the basics

They are the most obedient and the least

Those who are desperate enough

To defy orders

To go without, sometimes as a job

More and more of them live so close to the street

That it knows their names and weaknesses

Like a cobra sizing up a rat

Whose hunger drives it to do risky, embarrassing things

Just to stay alive

And like it

Now and then

Like crossing town

To secure your government issued identification in person

In a vehicle driven by someone who knows just how you feel

Who is full of wild conspiracies about the owners

A few of which, to your diminishing amazement

Will turn out to have been words worth the listening

Before you do as you are told for the day

Or the week, or the rest of your career, or your marriage

Which is wholly owned and operated by somebody else

Who owns you, from login name to password

All of your accounts are online, of course

It's increasingly easy to pay online, too

Or to be bought online, for that matter

However measly the sum

Or disappointing what can be got for it

While the best can only belong

To the owners

Belongings, and those to whom they belong

By the way

It used to be the case that to become an owner

You had to consistently show the owned that you'd be gentle

Even with outright disobedience, you could stay chill

For a while, until too many of the owners loudly complain

And threaten to make you one of the owned again

If your performance does not improve like, yesterday

You have to at least seem worth owning, or getting owned

By those who own and do not remember

What getting owned felt like, long ago

You have to seem like one of the owned

Who should really be an owner

With enough support

It'll happen, mark my words

Now that doesn't matter

Just get on with it

The owned don't have to like it

If they know what's good for them

I'm owned

My government issued identification

Costs more of my means of prolonging my life than before

Prolongation is the ultimate form of home improvement

And the worst part of torture

The rent

In my life, which grows shorter every day in any event

You are familiar with mortality

The decay of what was rather handsome

Once upon a time

Is obvious and rapid

But I have to keep it at bay, as best I can

And the only way to keep what freedom I have

To do things both necessary and sometimes enjoyable

Is to renew my government issued identification

Which costs more every year

How many of the owned

Have outgrown the idea

In pain

That anyone should be owned

What is free costs nothing

Who is getting things for free?

How much of them, practically for free?

God

Will there be any of them left

For anyone who hasn't so much

As eaten once since last night

Which, come to think of it, was not great

The fast food doesn't recognize

It's an oxymoron

Would you eat what you feed those you own?

What you feed them

That is the truth

About being owned

Most will enjoy it

Getting caught begging for more

Some will figure out what they are being fed

Demands for better will be made

Brace yourself

You could get owned again

Coming to in someone's bowl

Imagine the fearful suspense