Gandhitown

 


Let’s go visit Gandhitown,

that neighborhood that’s broken down;

they say the people living there

are hebephrenics, so take care.


The phones don’t work, the ceilings drip —

just watch your feet so you don’t trip;

there’s rusted springs and busted junk

as if society’s dead drunk.


The buildings sag from negligence —

what’s worse are all the residents;

the smell you smell is rotting food —

this visit takes some fortitude.


Nobody washes dishes here —

what you set down will disappear;

nobody fixes anything —

the infrastructure’s mainly string.


The people here don’t bathe for days —

besides, they’re all knee-deep in strays;

they have a funny way they talk —

cause they all grew up eating chalk.


They’re spraying garbage on their crops

and no one has invented mops;

the Heeb leaders are dressed in rags —

sometimes that evolution lags.


No archaeologists suggest

their timeline has ever progressed;

because their culture’s so decayed,

the social workers all invade.


Some lib’brals call it paradise

as they choose to ignore the lice;

romanticizing the backward,

they think this life would be preferred.


The tourists all think it’s a hoot

to see the natives so hirsute;

but if they had to live here, they’d

be, rest assured, fuckin’ dismayed.


You’ve really got to be naive

to think this place you’d never leave;

a year or two, you’d take a hike

back to the boujee crap you like.



Walking along the muddy, rubbish-heaped central street of Gandhitown, Dr. Mary Rittersdorf said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Clinically it’s mad. These people must all be hebephrenics. Terribly, terribly deteriorated.’ —Philip K. Dick, Clans of the Alphane Moon.



Text, narration, editing & production © 2020 C. Kurtz.