Congressional Bribery II

a herd on the Savannah
the sick and young and elderly
are falling behind
we are losing them
we love them
for their weakness
is salvation
for the rest of us
we scorn them
to thwart our guilt
but we can not
staunch our bleeding hearts

Congressional Bribery I

Their withered hands
groping for the fetid money
weeds and centipeeds crawling
through their decaying suits
shiny and handsome
encrusted with remains of fine meals
the laugh and lie
and sell the health of millions
to affluent predators
whom are fattened and happy
the mansions of these tigers
are littered with so much
ineffectual health care policy
one can not walk though
without staining one's soul

Zero Sum Biodiversity

Relentlessly pounding on their existence
to gain our little hectare of Hell
sew that recently departed sacred grove
of rain forest with Montsanto GMOs
see what you will have left
as the Earth wilts at our touch
zoos become our last bastion of encapsulated nature
Soon only rats, humans, and cows will remain
to fill out the class mammalia
so much easier to draw the phylum chart
we have dwindled down to a zero sum biodiversity state
with each overreaching grasping desire
I take for me an essential piece
of the much diminished creation
splendor lost for consumer gains
I wonder if God is ever disappointed with
how little of His lovely work remains

Felled Again A Horrid Year

crushed skull
under the weight
the percussion of Suffocation
sifting though my pain
searing serpent
waits to devour
cower in frustration
immobility reigns like a
Norse tyrant
pinned to my velvet bed
I howl and whine
more piteous animal than human
Winter is a pall
like an annual death
but this weakness
with me always
is a slight damnation
it and I limp off
the beggar kings
trailing their one crutch
though snows amassing

Disappearing in The Details

I have been reading
Why Hasn't Everything Disappeared
by Jean Baudrillard.
It is not about nihilism
the empty wish of some for the cessation of existence
nor the extinction of environmentalism
We are disappearing due to the fact that we are
extracting our essential selves from the real
by defining our world
we reduce each defined thing
to smaller manageable parts
this reduces the context and nuance
of each inter-related piece
thus limiting the scope of existence
by blinding us to so much
of the real

I love heavy metal.
The distortion the throb and hum
To me, it is the growling expression
of human alienation
an alienation bred of the modern dilemma
we are dislodged from our ancient sacred pathways
we are lost on ground
that was once clearly mapped
for a humanity engaged in surviving
now life is like a piece of paper
with a list of enumerated properties
weight, speed, phylum, hue saturation
in this we seek to express
our need for an ordering principal
the quantum descriptions of time
small inert pieces of space

naming and describing our way to a secular godhead
we strip away all of the layers
of mystery and meaning
we are left with a fixed typography
and an ever shifting plain of human values
the peels slip from our fingers
adrift on the wind
we can hope for little more
than a well written description
in a lexicon of disappointments

Attachments to Forms

When casting a bell for the temple
the craftsman asked what metal to use
He was told
It does not matter
No one will hear the bell
reverberate with simple piety
The craftsman persisted
He was told
All men will love the sight of the bell
if it is made of gold
All men will love its tone
if it is made of bronze
All men will love profits and war
if it is made of iron
Men will worship correctly
only if there is no bell

Out of Our Control

He is angry at the mute intentionless rain
he feels thwarted by a summer of injuries and bad weather
the summer was short and joyless
like a sail with no wind, slack
it was a horrible drowning in time
helpless in a small white room
listening to their shouts and laughter
as they run and ride bicycles
a few feet from his ruined body
rain and chronic injuries and time's unrelenting thrum
the tantalizing sounds of others' joy
wrapped in a cocoon so tight
only bands of slate blue light
seeping through as a preternatural twilight