“Our Uptight Squat Triangle Society” ( A Prose Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith

The Rich man programs his kids to expect more.

And resources both tangible & intangible fall off him like gold dusted lint,

His children can’t help but have the AU speckles land on them.

Of course, “The Rich” do sometimes give birth to a “Black Sheep” –

Where somehow the ‘should be child’ rejects the amorphous golden lint-cloud.

Usually The “Black Sheep” is roughly left alone to wallow in generalised failure,

But the Rich strictly ensure a veneer of plausible success is shellacked over them.

This is not so much because they care per se,

But more about fear.

Fear of embarrassment at the next hoytee-toytee dinner party;

The golf club;

The Country Club;

the Rotary Club;

The Wine Bar;

The last thing Sir Berty Peebles wants to hear is:

“Ah Berty – I hear your boy Stephen-Archibald the is a drunk unemployed bum these days”.

(Of course it wouldn’t ever be said this way).

This potential ‘death by embarrassment’ must never happen.

“So let’s slap dash a believable veneer on the boy m’dear! …..

….Rather! Jolly Good!”

“Yes Darling – let’s ‘remittence-man’ him at least 500km away post haste!”

Now the “Black Sheep” type child of the rich,

Is just a normal child to the poor or near poor.

There need be no special designation or title.

For the ‘children of the poor’ their failiures must be worn clearly on the exterior –

For otherwise no one could tell the difference between them & a ‘Black Sheep’.

And that could not be allowed to happen in Ye Olde England, now could it?

Or any of it’s now clandestine offspring Nations for that matter.

Perhaps this is how things must all happen at our current state of being.

The shape of society must always be policed.

So it remains a fat isoceles triangle.

For the ‘low rise extended rectangle’ type society didn’t work that well in the USSR did it?

So can I get a “Hurrah for the snobs”?

Or a “Three cheers for the well-heeled”?

Oh of course not, don’t be so silly.

Lets all just silently & tacitly agree,

i.e.

“Keep Calm & Carry On”.

And by-the-way isn’t it great,

The The Black Sheep & the Unspecified Poor Kid can be become great friends.

Or maybe even ‘business partners’ or something else good.

This the handy by-product of our uptight-squat-triangle-society.

(Or am I just entirely trapped in the past century, in desperate needing of counselling ?)