What’s it to be then Eh?
What is your identity Alex my Droog? Does your soul know your dreams?

From the wet and dark
Arose life anew
Full of raging violence
Wild and auspicious
Unbound of rule
In a world of chaos
In a digital epoch
Where violence is king
Not much different than today
Survival of the fittest
Ultra-violence life
Sharpened with synthemesc
Opium for the Lewdies
Real Horrorshow yarblockos
Until betrayed by droogies
Handed over to the millicents
Sent to prison
What’s it going to be Alex?

What’s it to be then eh?
Loss of your freedom
Or loss of your identity
Stay boxed and shut
In a cage full of clones
Uniform yet all alone
No longer free to make a choice
Or in a cage on the street
An jigsaw of yourself
Bound together by rules
One of society’s jewels
Unique yet robotic
Unable to speak your mind
Free but neurotic

What’s it to be then, eh?
Stay as you are condemned to prison
Pacing in your container
Forced to be humble
To a servant with keys
Mind shaped in rage
A soldier of mediocrity
Counting scratchmarks on the wall
Is that who you are?
Same ole same thing
Dancing to your own tune
Singing an aria of your life
Day after day
To unhearing ears
Lost in a sea of indifference
Or would you like to walk free

What’s it to be then, eh?
Manufactured nurture
Become a sandcastle
Built by society
Waiting for high tide
To carry away your self
Stripped of imagination
A perfect Orange fruit
Spinning like clockwork
Dancing to their rhythm
Singing their song
Living chapter to chapter
In society’s book mundane
But free to pace the streets
Absolved of your of sins
Yet unable to choose evil
A hamster in their wheel
Reserved and compliant
Void of expression
Trapped in the expectations
Of societal programmability

 
The Ludovico Technique
Gave Alex a choice
Life In prison
Or social experiment
Complacency or individuality
Join the theater of the sublime
Leave behind the slime
Become a cog in the wheel
However unreal
But free in the street
To all the vonny soddy bratchnies you meet
Free of the evil that possessed you
Or stay behind
With your evil mind
What’s it to be then Alex?
Eyes clamped open
Medicine of goodness
Dripping tears of complacency
Exorcized evil
Yes yes yes my one and only friend
Until Ludwig Von pierced your ego
Shattered it in a million pieces
Awaiting the vengeance due
Haven’t you ever seen a movie
Or watched a magic show
Nothing is ever what it seems to be my boy
Especially choice
But rejoice
Soon you’ll be free
Just not who you used to be
Lobotomized by law and order
What’s it to be then eh?
Your nature or their nurture

 
Little Alex
Our humble narrator
Filled with rage
Locked in a cage
A prison of damnation
You’re an editorial sensation
In a Jail
Of your own creation
Your life waiting on cremation
Alienation of a generation of mutations
Locked away for committing a crime
Imprisoned to a life of time
Loads and loads of time
Nothing but time
You were brought to trial
No longer a juvenile
Now locked in exile
Unable to smile or sashay in style
Because what you did was so vile
Now little Alex is a murderer
Surrounded by hate
Either translate or eradicate
But you will acclimate to a criminal fate
Or perish and dissipate
Full on mind amputate
You’re a lost little malchick Alex
What’s it to be indeed
What’s anything to be?

Inspired by a book that once helped shape a young mans free and open mind, A Clockwork Orange in which the very basic essence of existentialism is explored. Is a person still a person once stripped of choice and free will? Is there such a thing as free will? Is it up to a society to determine nurture or nature? Is the self the central theme of essence? I have read and reread the book many times, viewed the movie many times, and both still inspire deep philosophical questions of existence and cause and effect for me. The clockwork part is easy to work out, the running of the same regimens day after day without change but the orange has duel meanings for me. Anthony Burgess explains that the orange is a perfect fruit but I maintain a second meaning. No other word rhymes with orange giving it a sense of individuality and uniqueness. When they “cured “ Alex they were in effect coming up with other words that rhymed for Alex, stripping him of his individuality and winding him up in a clockwork. Anyway, my tribute to Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Burgess, and the words that jumped off the pages and into my heart and mind….
In street beat poetry