Paint

“Is it a bird?”

“Is it a biplane?”

“No I think that’s Superman,
And he wears a white cape.”

“That is an illusion and nothing else,”
Said the wise man who always knew best,
“Look at the fine brushstrokes,
The artistic inner eye.
His kaleidoscopic vision,
Of wrath, lust and lies.”

“Lust? That is thought crime!
I must in deed report this man.
The Party demands it;
And he wears a white cape!
Comrade Lenin will turn in his grave!”

“You blind fool, its art,
Appreciate it.
Prick not your conscience
A masterpiece condemned,
To be erased forever,
From time and memory?

“Conscience? Am I conscious comrade?
Orthodoxy demands I do what He says.
In our world, the only world,
There is no room for this…superman.
Everyone is super, just as nobody is.
We are all uniformly happy,
Uniformly sad.
We serve our nation,
There’s no greater joy to be had.”

“Man, you bleat like a goat.
You do however leave me confused.
This He you refer to,
This Big B of yours,
Is he not your superman?”

“Now comrade, I thought you were wise.
You ask silly questions though.
Lost in capitalistic and selfish thought,
You fail to appreciate what he does.
We as a nation divide our work,
Some think, some toil, some do.
Big B doubleplusthinks,
For the greater good of us all.
Its tough work, it requires reward.”

“So if He does all the thinking,
Do you not think?
You blindly believe the ‘truth’?”

“I do not question,
Where’s the need?
I wouldn’t, I couldn’t think!
The truth is the truth,
Where lies the problem?
Do you people manipulate that too?”

And thus they debated,
Through night and through day,
The commie and the bourgeoisie.
They reached no conclusion,
But the artist found it most amusing,
For the painting was in fact,
Meaningless.