Clipper blades and feather pillows

Snip
snip-snip
snip, snip, snip
These days, you can hear that subtle clicking almost everywhere
a persistent backing track
news reports, lecture theatres, office meetings, sometimes even festivals and protests
snip-snip
snip-snip
the sound of wings being clipped
removing our pinions one by one, faster than we can regrow them
stuffing our feathers into pillows
soothing us to sleep
“narrow your ambitions for brighter futures”
the wing-clippers whisper to us
“a better world is impossible
we have to bomb the hospitals
we must bulldoze the forest
we’ve got no choice but to melt the polar ice caps”
they tear out the brightest feathers first
systematically assassinating the mothers of revolution
before they can even given birth
some masquerade as rebels
machine cogs disguised under rainbow flags or reggae guitar riffs
claiming they’ve outsmarted the system while polishing their own prison bars
clipping wings at the speed of summer bushfires
but look closely
at the hands that pluck so relentlessly
see
the wing-clippers are not the demonic agents
of suit-wearing puppet-masters sitting round a boardroom table,
carving up maps of stolen wealth like hyenas circling a carcass
No
a more familiar face stares back at you in the clipper blade reflection
mindlessly repeating lullabies like “we have to be pragmatic”
and “the voters would never support that”
and “there’s no point protesting – you can’t stop progress!”
Who did this to us?
which sculptor moulded us into such cowardly subordination?
clipping our own wings
scoffing at mere suggestions of systemic transformation
our imaginations colonized, neutralised
baptised into complicity
the holy water was laced with sedatives
but the revolution will not be euthanised
emancipate your thinking
set fire to your feather pillows
banish the counter-revolutionary wing-clipper within you
organise a strike
occupy a bank
blockade an eviction
blow up a pipeline
sabotage a coal mine
cook a meal for a sick neighbour
you are not powerless
you are thousands of generations of ancestors
who brought you to this world to protect life
snip-snip comrades
time to redirect your blades to those puppet strings
your wings
will grow back
if you stop clipping them