Order

Order! Order! Order, I say!

You, there, unhand that man.

This is a courtroom, not a circus.

Don’t give me that look or

I’ll hold you in contempt!

(like you hold me…)

Hold me tight, dear, isn’t it stuffy down here?

Have the sirens stopped yet? Can we leave?

These drills are wearing on my nerves.

Nerves course, synapses fire, one triggers another

fire, fire! No, that’s a mushroom cloud,

rising from a new-made hell –

It’s fallen, so they all will

Down, down, perish in the blast or

Succumb to the red tide, Red October

Just like China and

Down they all fall,

Ten little dominoes, standing in a line,

Someone taps the trigger and

The world goes MAD.

There is no “or” no more

Just a Domino Theory cuz a loudmouth

Gives the order and the rows and rows

Obey, rows of guns, rows of shaved heads,

Skinheads, damn those white-robed

Bastards with their uniformity, their

Order, but no, damn those who don’t fit the order,

Throw them in the concrete chambers

And fill their lungs with poison

Because I was only following orders, Your Honor

Yeah and so was your boss

And so was his

And once you get to the top

Who gives the order?

The madman or a deluded God?

And I don’t know which scares me more

Cuz the orders are passed down

And they multiply, being fruitful

And subduing the earth

Beneath our ever-growing houses

In neat rows with trimmed lawns

And a bomb shelter out back, our ever-taller house

Of cards, of lies, of visions, of order

Of little tiny switches marked “x-or”

And at the brush of his finger it

All

Falls…

And you have your order

Because no one’s alive to question it.