Borderline

Everybody looks so ill at ease
So distrustful, so displeased
Running down the table
I see a borderline
Like a barbed-wire fence
Strung tight
Strung tense
Prickling with pretense
A borderline.
Why are you smirking at your friend?
Is this to be the night when
All well-wishing ends?
All credibility revoked?
Thin skin, thick jokes!
Can we blame it on the smoke,
This sudden borderline?
Every bristling shaft of pride
Church or nation
Team or tribe
Every notion we subscribe to
Is just a borderline.
Good or bad, we think we know;
As if thinking makes things so!
All convictions grow along a borderline.
Smug in your jaded expertise,
You scathe the wonder world
And you praise barbarity.
In this illusionary place—
This scared hard-edged rat race
All liberty is laced with
Borderlines.
Every income, every age,
Every fashion-plated rage,
Every measure, every gauge
Creates a borderline.
Every stone thrown through glass,
Every mean-streets-kick ass,
Every swan caught on the grass
Will draw a borderline.
You snipe so steady
You snub so snide—
So ripe and ready
To diminish and deride!
You’re so quick to condescend,
My opinionated friend
All you deface, all you defend
Is just a borderline.
Just a borderline...
Just a borderline...
Another borderline...
Just a borderline.