This isn't a poem

Labels everywhere
on minds, souls and thoughts
and there is Eliot
on the shelf

today I can take
walk with him
on the streets of London
or anywhere

no longer afraid
of the asylum
that's where
the questioning ones end

the rest just comply
or shut down

the million-handed
octopi of thoughts
snatch words
from each other

and then
when the noise
reaches an unbearable crescendo

the words run helter-skelter
to meditate

you cringe or smile
there is no evidence
of any feeling ever

I look up
to find a face
to put up
for the other faces
I have to meet today.