A Problem Solved

Confronted with the existential freight
Of adult living, the disquieting weight
Of moral being in stretching time and space,
The stock, default reaction -the disgrace
Of quailing funk; poor eminence which may
Be all that, sadly, most of us display.
The hills and shelter - that for which we opt;
The fetal clasp of knees - what we adopt.
In virtual worlds we waste the Zombie hoard,
The aliens, Nazis, crims and hoes. We Lord
It over Orcs and Wraiths. The childhood version
Will not unfold in abject, bald desertion!
But waking from our childish dream to day,
The world is reconfigured to dismay;
The game’s restarted now on different terms,
And we’re exposed - no less than threshing worms.
Emerges then the chief imperative,
To seem the hero and the world deceive.
Means must be found to blind the social eye,
Irrelevant the nature of the lie.
Be the means, politics or charity
Scarce matters to the beneficiary.
Choose socialism or gender wars,
Street protest, whales or any other cause.
The content is the least important part,
What counts – the scope for storyteller’s art,
In narratives where you can be the hero,
Evading risk of being seen as zero,
And villains are with ease identified
No matter who is falsely, thus, descried.
The tale requires the raised and angry fist,
The T-shirt marked “No compromise!” - the hissed
And hapless politician made a fiend,
Our crag-jawed hero’s reputation cleaned
Of all suggestion that he dodges balls.
So, pay-off gained by stories’ wherewithals,
He feels insured against his worst unease:
Unsought exposure of the fact that he’s
Not what he seems; that he’s a yellow-belly,
His spine and constitution made of jelly.
Thus life is forced to be computer game,
A sneaky means to rescue his good name.