Atlas Mugged

 

 

Atlas Mugged

I don’t like you much, John Galt,

born of a bitter barren mother,

witching ethics into egotism,

confusing freedom with just the wanting,

people’s rights with tyrant’s lust.
Why even bother asking who you are
when everybody knows?

You’re just too good to be true, John Galt,

striding through her pages cloaked in power

in your noble strength and mystery,

pretending to create the world from abstract air

sprung from your handsome forehead all intact,

but no one sees that as you're swarming up the dogpile,

you're crushing rock-ribbed bodies beneath your boots.

It's not your spotless well-kept hands that lay the track

or staff your clanking cars. A mass of others

make your transcontinental timetables all print true,

and hold up this your great enormous enterprise

on their wide and sturdy backs while you

explore your angry soul, John Galt, and

fill your endless coffers and

cry, “I am the victim!

of little men and littler rules. “

You cry, “I take the risks!
and there can never be enough.

but I need your money,
your jobs and lives for me to wager on a throw.

Please sign for them here so I can go on gambling,

and have you underwrite me
when my card-house melts and burns.”

You're  both a diner and a cooker-up of money.

You whisper, “I’m the boss, the proud consumer

of little men and littler rules, They'll be my dinner
and I'll have second helpings
of all my just desserts. 

As for you,
I’ll laissez-faire you, dice and slice you,

make of your marrow bones

a chaos soup for me to sip.”

I don’t like you much at all, John Galt

and that’s an understatement.
Nothing must restrain you while

you roll your diamond dice.

You juggle worlds because you can

and drop the markets’ glittering millions,

still slick with sweat and labor

down a stinking sewer of avarice

for a loser’s game of lust.

Were you different once, John Galt?

Perhaps then you cared for something
that was greater than yourself.

But now you’re old and care for nothing,

maudlin drunk with all that dark and lustrous wine

men drink when they assume they wear
the mantle of the gods.

We know who you are, John Galt,

hero of deluded adolescents. If only

that round globe you say you balance

could be seen for what it is:

our lives that are your toy,

the rolling ball of all your greed,

and if only you could be the one beneath it

when the world you’ve pushed so hard falls off our backs.

November 2010

Also submitted to  Big Tent Poetry  for their Monday prompt(slightly revised to include the  word, 'Enough,' though I think the concept is already present.)

Posted for One Shot Wednesday at the inimitable One Stop Poetry

Disclaimer: I freely admit it's been thirty or more years since I read Atlas Shrugged, and that I may have taken some liberties in modernizing Mr. Galt  into current socio-economic context. The poem is just a poem, and while it obviously reflects my personal opinion, it's not particularly intended to debunk the validity of Objectivism or modern day libertarianism.

Additional Info: For those who may not have been exposed or want to refresh, here's a quick linky to the wikipedia entries on John Galt, the character, and Atlas Shrugged, the 1950's dystopian  novel by Ayn Rand.

Image: El mundo, by Manuel Domínguez Guerra, wikimedia commons