Incarcerating Fishbowl Poem by Lone Ghost

Strolling down the city of LA,
riding my bike during the climax of traffic,
The Sun just set, and everyone
anxiously drives back to their burrows
saturating the streets with clamor.

I pass through a Vietnamese nail salon,
the clientele chiefly consist of clotheshorse women
who apparently lead an extravagant lifestyle of vanity,
I wonder if the employees long to be there,
or if is it the squalid longing for green paper doing the drive,
or maybe just the resignation to a particular fixed fate,
I wonder if the customers really wish
to put all that energy in getting pretty and adorned,
exhausting themselves, vainly fighting age,
or if they are only striving to be validated by random men.


I enter into a somber alley,
cockroaches surround the big,
rusted garbage containers while
the bugs' brown caramelized armors,
reflect the artificiality of the tank,
the world´s elite macabre plan,
where 'they' are trying to fit everyone in.
Or at least that's what it seems,
Even worse to know is,
through our ignorance we,
co-work with them to accomplish all this.

I keep pedaling,
a groceries wheel cart covered by a filthy blanket
conceals the belongings of a bum,
garbage for others, gold for him.
Sucker fishes keeping the fictitious crystal walls
of society's fish-tank cleaner and roomier,
sucking the unwanted debris and moss.


Cigarette smoke
coming out of a restaurant's backyard,
a brown person of Hispanic heritage,
sitting-wearing a white stained apron,
holding a cigarette, while the screen
of his phone illuminates his face
as he scrolls trough his social networks,
craving for the time to exit,
thirsty for the weekend's beer,
escaping from the labor,
caught deeply in the tank.

An alluring aroma escapes from the restaurant's backdoor,
culinary yet industrialized smell.
I glance into it, the kitchen,
the art for cooking has gradually mostly become
fabrication ran by insensible ambition.

I peer through the door:
The sharks and other fishes of considerable superficial size,
wear executive and fancy apparel.
Exquisite food is ready to be served in their plate,
some of them gluttonously smile,
others seem to gratefully wait,
but at the smell of blood
most of us can't resist.
when wealth is at stake
our ¨virtues¨ are quickly forget.
under the influence of the toxicity of the constraining tank,
not swallowing a smaller bleeding fish floating in the stream,
is sadly quite rare.



I keep pedaling, coming to the end of the alley
to find myself in the rendezvous of the ¨inanimate¨ souls,
A group of Mexican, and Central American people,
out of a liquor store crowding the parking lot,
sipping beer from cans covered by brown paper bags,
Already scratching, scratching the lottery tickets,
selling their luck and their grace to the sharks
and other bigger creatures inhabiting the tank,
giving up, not doing anything to not be
'their' easy food on Monday again.

The ocean of life is boundless,
realize there is no real boundaries;
That the waters of the oceans
are the same as those in the fishbowl,
Trespass the fictitious structures of society
preconceived patterns, cultures and ideologies,
and realize there's no wall:
No difference between Puerto Ricans, Whites, Asians, Jewish, Blacks and Mexicans. No nothing stripping the cosmos from the mundane. No bowl keeping us in bondage.