“Caviar At The Work Table” (Prose/A Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The World Waiter will serve you shit sandwiches.

Then tell you it’s caviar.

When you scream:

“Can’t you see that’s shit between bread???”

The World Waiter will say:

“How dare you insult our glorious chef – he cooks for you..you...Workers….

He bends over backwards for you…you.. ungratefuls……

Now eat your effing caviar you…you…WORKER YOU!”

And then if you say:

“And what will you do if I refuse to eat this shit sandwich World Waiter sir?”

They will say:

“We will make sure you cannot work yourself to death…er I mean are employed in our work camps….er I mean Work tables…

..We will conspire amongst ourselves to ban you from slavery..er Work.. & you will die in a ditch!…

You’ll get no shit sandwhiches…I mean you’ll get no delicious caviar… you..you…Worker swine! – you’ll starve fool!!!”.

You think for a minute – soaking it all in.

You know those workers who refused to toe the line.

Those ones under the bridges.

Those starving ones.

Those ones wearing threadbare rags.

Those ones all The Workers like you are afraid to one day become.

Those ones who couldn’t play anymore or were kicked off the sick game on offer .

Those ones who saw the shit sandwhiches as shit sandwhiches.

You make a decision & bite down hard on the shit sandwhich, its contents oozing down you chin.

You look up merrily & say to the impatient & now fuming World Waiter:

“My word this caviar is delightful!.. This is the best shit sandwhich.. er I mean caviar, I’ve ever tasted…so juicy! Give my regards to the glorious & bent over chef”.

The World Waiter now placated half smiles & slowly dissapears to the next Worker Table.

You think to yourself.

“I swear this shit sandwhich is starting to taste like caviar”.

You suddenly feel ashamed, for you think you know what’s happening.

Your cowardly thoughts somehow soothe your confortably re-battered soul.

The thought goes on:

“Oh well, at least I’ll be retiring from this Work Table in fifteen years.

It’s not that long – I’ve been here twice that time anyway!…

…and then I’ll be able to have all this shit tasting caviar without even having to sit at a Work Table”.

As you feel less fearful that you’ll end up like “The Others”, you hear the The World Waiter from accross the room.

“How dare you insult our glorious chef – he cooks for you..you..Workers….”.

As you finish your last bite, you feel a twinge on cameraderie wash over you.

“Ah..so this is what it feels like to be truly alive, among colleagues, well fed, with a roof over my head…and sitting at this highly polished Worker Table….Long life the glorious World Waiter & The bent-over Chef!….I am so lucky! Lucky-Lucky-Lucky!”

But then you find yourself in the midst of a sudden involuntary “GULP”.

You know somethings up – but for the life of you,

You can’t quite figure out what it is.

“Are All My Fave Writers Just Chumps?( An Idea/Article/Prose)

by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The best art that is thrown up by the system itself,

And described as the best art by the system itself,

Must be of the kind of art that lets out safely the pent up steam in the most discontented heads,

Strongly so but also safely so out of all the true latent Revolutionarys’ minds,

So as to the deflate the risk of a actual Revolution ever happening.

This is a good definition of what is called controlled opposition.

It is the most natural thing to see the following occur:

A Revolutionary Writer or Artist agrees to castrate their ideas & themselves,

Because this is how they can become noticed by the money payers – The Publishers, The Galleries – Society Folk.

The former potential True Revolutionary sighs in giant relief as they grab the long awaited fat cheque.

With cheque -in-hand the former potential Revolutionary knows they have been kept off the street – maybe for life.

No question – It is indeed a big personal payoff.

Of course the creative will keep deluding themselves or lying to others that they are still a potential Revolutionary.

But this has been made impossible by the publishing deal now done & dusted.

For to become known, to become lauded, to become finacially secure –

At some key level the Revolutionary part has to be nixed, neutralised, nullified – signed away with.

And with the artist’s signature now captured in bloody ink, the future Revolution is indefinitely delayed.

The system has won, at least for now.

For the old biblical quote is true:

How can a house stand if it is divided against itself?

The system cannot ever intentianlly promote True Revolutionaries.

This is why by definition all our so called favourite Revolutionary Writers

Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick etc etc

Have all been co-opted by the system,

& so used as a Societal-Anti Revolution-Pressure-Release-Device.

These kinds of authers are all true geniuses & will have known this fact to be true.

For them it’s a hard intellectual fact to swallow –

But they wanted to be successful writers not True Revolutionaries.

It’s not an easy fact for us fans to swallow either –

We like to delude ourselves romantically that they were/are True Bona-fide Revoltionaries.

It’s a kind of shared fantasy that us fans self-police amongst ourselves.

Our mainstream success anti heroes are real dammit, if only more people read them the system would change! Let’s drink to the True Revolutionaries!

I’m not telling anyone to stop reading Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick et al,

I’m just busting the myth we all happily go along with –

That they are indeed True Revolutionary Writers.

In summary I contend that the adage The pen is mightier than the sword,

Is actually there so the existing power structure stays in power, & is not overthrown.

The True Revolutionary says the sword is mightier than the pen & would never say the reverse.

And incidentily, all the worst (best?) Dictators all had an intuitive knowledge of this.

Despite all their talent for storytelling & warnings Orwell, Huxley, Bukowski, P.K. Dick et al,

Will first & foremost be Anti-Revolution pressure valves – & so also controlled opposition.

Don’t worry – as a massive fan of them – I don’t want to believe it either!

But this doesn’t stop it from being true.

I’ll also keep reading them all with glee –

despite the fact they are all Societal-Anti Revolution – Pressure-Release-Devices or controlled opposition.

All this is why it’s so hard for anyone to be a True Revolutionary.

You can’t just reach for the cheque.

This article is owned by Martin Smith Creations ltd (NZ). If you are a person or a small non-profit please read or reproduce freely. Commercial Users or NGO’s: If you want to purchase for reprint of this work for a commercial project to reach a wider audience – then contact me via martinantonsmith@gmail.com to gain written legal permission.

“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 ?)