Blindly Destructive Hand Of The Free Marketplace

Coupled with an unwavering and blind faith in our choice from all of those One True Gods

The blind hand of the marketplace unerringly creates optimal economic solutions

Thus, toxic emissions from our vehicles should not be saddled with artificial taxes

But weapons producers can increase demand through promotion of phony bogeymen

Given our love of exotic hardwoods, loggers quite naturally clear cut and sell them all

Pure supply and demand is always superior to meddling government social interventions

Strictly for-profit healthcare will provide all the medical services the old, sick & poor really need

If it is cheaper to bulldoze cropland than to redevelop strip malls, that alone makes it proper

Exterminating predators in competition for our domestic cattle is natural to market economics

Quite naturally, social costs cannot be found on the ledgers of brave entrepreneurs

Nobody profits from forests quietly filtering drinking water, so their rate of return is zero

Producers need not pay for problems their contaminated dust brings to far off lands

Making coal clean is inefficient and costs the consumer more, so it is to be avoided

Air and water are free goods and pollution controls are simply taxes, not investments

Capitalists will always be rewarded for reducing prices through slashing labor costs

If the Chinese will pay $600/oz, starving tribesman will sell all the ivory they can gun down

Factory trawlers can rob an old african fishing village of its living in the name of globalism

Short-term crop increases justify the overuse of fossil water and costly, dangerous chemicals

It is merely simpleminded idealism to hope for economic self-interest to be tempered with altruism

Our financials contain no long-term debt reflecting unsustainable resource usage

I can use my 300 hp SUV solely as an air-conditioner because the gas is all I need to pay for

Why add costly insulation to my home when energy costs less the more that I use

Neither the producer nor the consumer has any economic incentive to recycle

Laissez-faire allows prices to rise until scarce goods are simply driven to extinction

A dirt-poor consumer lacks incentive to drive producers towards sustainable practices

Government income transfers are an unnatural artifact which corrupt a pure economy

Hiring illegal immigrants at a fraction of market rate is rational economic behavior

Using a cheap, unregulated foreign food ingredients yields a clever competitive advantage

Shifting production overseas saves costs and justifiably brings executives great rewards

A large, poor, uneducated, young workforce benefits producers of consumer goods

Realistically, pension plans make no business sense and are to be eliminated via bankruptcy

Citizens should pay their own way in free retirement and healthcare marketplaces

Tying electablility to fundraising neatly marries entrepreneurship with politics

Certainly, we can rely on supply and demand curves to intersect at sustainable catch levels

We reflect with pride on our pollution reduction, having exported all of our factories

A no-strings bailout of the Too-Big-To-Fail will produce a blossoming of industrial self-regulation

We will simply let the marketplace test the survivability of these so-called endangered species

We Are Sentenced To Wildly Over-Reproduce

We’ll triage on down to only those features that simply maintain human population

We can crowd out the threatened species that do not enhance our own survivability

It’s possible to squeeze out a bit more farmland by clearing those last marginal habitats

And let our madly growing numbers remain our unspoken and most basic human right

We can crowd together in sprawling unplanned slums poisoning each other’s air and water

Economies of scale blindly sliding ever more of us towards some globalized fatal brink

We can monocrop with genetically-modified and sterile seed to feed the writhing masses

Verily, all of our one true gods bless our efforts to give birth to as many children as we wish

But, deserts would not encroach, if the hillsides did not crawl with firewood gatherers

Global warming would not threaten us without 8 billion immortal souls burning fossil fuels

If so many did not desire tigers, tuna and ivory it would reduce their profitability

But we are condemned to fruitfulness and sentenced to wildly over-reproduce

A few toxic pollution hot spots would not so endanger a vastly smaller population

Without so many customers, we would not have to build our meat like automobiles

Our bread need not be forged in factories and delivered in giant, dirty semi trucks

But our corporate masters demand hordes of wage slaves and a vast consumer market

Third world children would not grow up assembling luxuries they can never hope to enjoy

Maybe we could even give each and every one of our fewer children special attention

Smaller towns and villages might reduce the awful crimes bred of urban anonymity

But which fascist racist will you permit to dictate how many children you are allowed?

With far fewer consumers, perhaps resource wars would not be so wholly obligatory

Increasing numbers lead unsustainably to food pills and cardboard homes for most

A smaller human footprint would reduce our clumsy collateral environmental damage

But only the butchers and the sadists even consider over-population a social problem

Note well how Petri dish microbes increase wildly only to then crash to tiny levels

See how our vast numbers consume even renewables at non-renewable rates

Calculate our ever-increasing population’s dependence on irreplaceable resources

Yet the fruit of His living word decreases directly with the ¾ of a million new souls born every day

Our very numbers allow politicians to dangle false choices between family and habitat

We might even leave more than debts to the future if fewer of us were consuming right now

With more for fewer, the hopelessness that feeds fundamentalism might even just disappear

But, we cannot go there for fear of losing our precious humanity and our everlasting souls

There is not one global problem a smaller population would not help us to alleviate

Perhaps less than 90% of those living would not have to subsist on a dollar a day

Of course, any and all population control is simply a form of totalitarian, atheistic genocide

Though scientists say our numbers will stabilize soon, we are already unsustainably far too many

Living In Our SUV

It’s not too bad now that we got the three of them pushed up back to back

Sawed off the steering wheels and put cardboard on the bedroom windows

We got a couple plastic buckets marked for carrying water in and our peepee out

It’s a prime spot on the old interstate real close to the dump where we all work

Took my little sister down to the river for her first  bath just last week

Momma still ain’t strong enough to walk and she looks really pale
I’monna try to find her a star magazine as I work the trash today

Yup, we’re hearing that the fundamentals are still looking pretty strong

There’s lots of stuff to burn but the fumes get pretty smelly up inside the cab

Someday we’ll take over a big rig down at the truck stop and all live like kings

Every once in a while one of them black helicopters flies by real low overhead

Sometimes they drop them sacks of protein pills and that stuff we call happy candy

Our little dog caught 3 rats for us last week and we had a dandelion salad

I found a paper insert with all the stuff that used to be on sale ever saturday

Them scabs that started on my brother have covered pert near his whole arm

We think we can get a microloan to go buy some of those nice new orange jump suits

A group of us found a mound and laid out a cross made of stones up on top

Just last month somethin they called a jet flew over real high and on by so serene

It’s always hot except when the giant storms blow in and wash away the urine smells

We know from all the screaming not to make the slightest sound all night

Jesus is bringing guns and sweets and coffee said the man who killed my uncle

They lynched a guy who ate a dog that was guarding a family’s drying skunk meat

We attack some of the people who wander by and some of them steal from us

They’re looking at robust growth going forward because the basics are all in place

It’s great when they scatter those paper leaflets that help us start our cooking fires

My dad is the oldest left since all the gray hairs died a couple springs ago

They tell me it’ll soon be my duty to start having as many kids as I can, with their help

Daddy says our SUVs used to get packed to overflowing with food and clothes and toys

That fellow with his pencil was going on about some post-modern apocalypse

Jennie saw a camouflaged vehicle with guys inside in plastic suits and face masks

Some boys found 2 bottles of whiskey and raped my sister and then crippled each other

The women have all taken to wailing real mournful like around noon every day

Fires start up and flame out of control day and night and the burns look just awful

Mommie cried as she told me that this bleeding just meant I was now a woman

Somebody told me I better hush up unless I can start to speak some English

The bearded man said if I just believe, a reward of eternal paradise awaits me

Working In The Darkness

It seemed as if I strained to leave a message by pressing tiny keys in heavy mittens

I thought I spoke very clearly given that I was so far beneath the surface

On my knees I felt my way with heavily-wrapped hands, alone

I tried to read but there was too much darkness before the tiny print

I heard many of the finer details crumbling beneath my clumsy feet

I had to remove all my tools just to squeeze on thru the smallest openings

I thought they spoke to me as I crawled by, but they were simply saying grace

I was condemned to groping with zippers flaps and buttons with thick gloves in darkness

Always sat down to eat only to realize there were no forks or knives

Kept on finding myself driving far faster backwards than I ever would have considered

Could not free the strap but it was too dangerous to remove my mittens

Groped my way through a black labyrinth that was but a child’s cluttered bedroom

Followed my trail in a circle cleaning up what flaked off my muddy boots

Working through the noisy rooms, I could not quite grasp their radio transmissions

Craved to rip my mask away but knew the atmosphere was deadly poison

I handed up my shovel when the hole was dug and then they told me to lay down

Working in that smoky darkness, over-heated and running low on air

We repeatedly shouted simple things to each other through our coverings and the din

Though I rose quickly for the surface, I was not sure if I could hold my breath that long

The protective lens was fogged but with the smoke it did not matter

I was wearing and carrying far too much to even do the little work assigned me

Hardly able to keep up, much more of a burden than any help at all

Feeling the entire sandy hill slide underneath me towards an unseen cliff

Forced to accidentally break many useful objects just to find the door

I concentrated my efforts on overloaded groping like a blind and half-deaf mole

I solved the puzzle with perfect logic but never knew my solution began incorrectly

Came to an ambivalent fork that was not on the map, far too long ago to turn back now

Working in the darkness, everything I had taken for granted rose up to claim my attention

As I moved, different parts of my body each locked into position like a finished puzzle

With every sweating overheated gasping breath I longed merely to kneel and rest

Moving through this poisonous darkness with all our senses protected, and cut off

Far-off voices called after me and I simply could not bring myself to ignore them

From somewhere within me came the feel of that cool Canadian air from my boyhood

I lay there thinking that I heard that church bell tolling long and gentle once again

I dreamed I was mummied up in bandages and blankets rolling down a bumpy road

But sometimes the darkness did not frighten me because I had no more light within

“He” Does Not Work In Mysterious Ways

"He" cannot command us to place no other god before Him and to smite those who do

It is not god who stirs our passions and pits us to the death against each other, in "His" name

There is no god under whom t"His" one nation remains indivisible, despite our pledges

God did not say to be fruitful and overrun t"His" earth like some terrible plague

"His" word does not bid us to war upon those adopting a different creation myth fantasy

"He" cannot condemn to endless suffering those who live well, but in ignorance of "His" word

"He" does not command us to destroy the environment merely out of simple greed

God did not say we should spend endless hours publicly politicizing abortion

"He" does not smile down upon the fruition of "His" plan for tax-deductible church ski vacations

No living god speaks to us through the moldy prophets of any bible or koran

Our so-called savior does not demand of us an ever-increasing defense budget

"He" will not come and counsel us personally in times of difficult political decision-making

"He" cannot guide us through the emptiness that will once more envelop all of us

"He" does not wait to tally our sins before the baroque gates of some fuzzy heaven

There is not a God who could even falsely promise salvation for only those who believe in “Him”

"He" has not notified any chosen people of their selection, either now or in our past

God does not throw "His" support behind any conservative evangelical movement

"He" does not bless us with the slave labor of the poor in far off heathen lands

"He" did not watch omnipotently with clucking tongue as we fell into original sin

"He" did not offer up what we called a son from some illiterate virgin to save us

The word is not even a human interpretation of some actual divine revelation

"He" does not work in mysterious ways, for "He" is not there to do any work at all

Your pompous costumes and righteous edicts do not spring from "His" commands

Demanding that God Bless America at the end of all your canned speeches says it all

We are created not in "His" image but surely from ashes to ashes, and dust to dust

Your scowling, brooding, vengeful, mullahs are only filled with poisonous myths

God never said that women should stay covered, barefoot, ignorant and pregnant

Preserving purportedly holy sites does not alter the utter baselessness of our beliefs

God did not say to take dominion over all the so-called lesser creatures of "His" earth

"He" did not implant only in us a soul that we might alone among all creation worship Him

"He" does not listen to the selfish prayers we squeak from our corporate religion warrens

"He" do not stand on our side in these foolish struggles with which we fill our short lives

There is no heavenly balance sheet holding your so-called sins and virtuous acts

They have no right to grant you a tax-deductible eternal salvation plan in "His" name

God did not say to franchise "His" word by milking the poor to build useless temples

It is not true that we are unable to toss out these dusty beliefs and re-invent them once again

Pissed Away, Wasted, Scoffed And Ignored

Pissed away the rivers, bays and lakes with our dams, oils and chemicals

Wasted my time so haplessly drinking, fighting and carrying on for the girls

Wasted so much fuel on thoughtless commuting, vacationing and shopping

Pissed away my brain on anger, fear, jealousy and desire

Tossed out unopened and unread the lessons the elders had struggled so desperately to send

Ignored the many signals from the earth that our time had grown so dangerous and short

Ignored the melancholy head shaking by those girls with their long brown-hair

Tossed out without a thought so many things the kids now dig for, just trying to re-use

Made so much senseless noise that we always had to shout, just to hear our own thoughts

Now the silence we always feared is no longer pregnant, but simply empty

Now our smoke and our dust does not block out the heat and the sun like it used to

Made a lot of money but always somehow spent quite a bit more than we earned

Scoffed at all the hard-working people who made my foolish lifestyle possible

Destroyed habitats we knew we did not need with those self-satisfied and knowing smirks

Destroyed relationships that then seemed unimportant with my casually caustic sarcasm

Scoffed at the fuzzy science and junk math of those limp environmental wackos

Trampled on the feelings of those who even tried to help to see me through

Gutted the fragrant valleys to extract the coal which we then burned to foul the air

Gutted myself writhing on the poisoned spikes of the invisible fences of safe society

Trampled the carefully tended fields on our endless marches to war’s glory

Fouled my lungs and brain and liver with tobacco and alcohol and propaganda

Derided their calls for sustainability as unnecessary and far too expensive in jobs and money

Derided my own efforts as puny and insignificant until I finally gave them up

Fouled our landfills, roadways and suburbs right along with the blessed rain and the snow

Sacrificed my wanderlust for the prison-style safety of the prairie dog cubicle farm

Sold them on phony religious paradises in return for their tithes, obedience and souls

Sold them out to overseas suppliers, laid them off and took home our fat bonuses

Sacrificed as little as we could and mistook dumb luck for god’s eternal blessing

Walked away from the little messes that I created time and time again

Fouled our entire sweet nest under god’s direction and with the help of our just laws

Fouled up the lives of all the good people who tried in vain just to give me shelter

Walked away from the mine wastes, chemical spills, abandoned factories and the unemployed

Pissed away my few allotted days and then asked why I should not have even more

Pissed away, in a heartbeat, our hard-earned respect from the rest of the world

Pissed away the many chances we were granted to even try to do what was right

Pissed away our precious children’s futures as we lived our lives to the fullest, just for today

From The Shadows

I crept out at night from our hiding place and squeaked a bit when it was very still

The powerful lay in temperature-controlled leisure before the holy big screens

Their angry bellowing and trumpeting kept me fearful in my darkened hiding place

I scurried about gathering a few of their scraps for food and to build a tiny nest

Sometimes when they would see me they acted as if I were not there

Other times I saw my tiny brothers left limp and broken in the dank urban desolation

Their power was so vast and all-encompassing that they were as gods to us

The completeness of their dominance left them as doubtless as we were hopeless

I rejoiced when I could steal back home with one or another of their castoffs

I knew how to stay very still and remain concealed as they trampled heavily on by

We made no issues with the gutted landscape they had created in their images

We prospered as well upon their increased wastes, the richer they felt they grew

They totally ignored us but slaughtered many of us in simple unnoticed accidents

We stole their tiny golden eggs at every rare opportunity

We did not know they made noise just to interfere with each other’s thinking

Sometimes we furtively hung posters of our churlish, clandestine manifestos

I piped out my shrill rage with all my puny lungs in the safety of our filthy warren

Fought tiny but brutal battles over under-nourished, whining females

Did not make so much as a sound as their ponderous footsteps approached again

Saw others crushed beneath the massive metal monsters those gods rode within

Though our fate was sealed long before we were even born, we trilled our reservations

We worshiped them in fear, never harboring a thought of usurping their grandeur

While we left nothing lasting, the signs of their dominance remained for centuries

Though sad to say not a trace was left by the time the next geologic epoch had begun

I spent a lifetime wet and caked with putrid mud without any promise of salvation

We were glad to be overlooked when they cast about for yet another enemy

I made my living darting from cranny to shadow when they were not around

Little remains of our existence except the legends from that era so very long ago

When I died, but one of the pups that I had sired still lived to sniff my dirty corpse

They had overturned our hidden nest and casually slaughtered us as we scattered

I had been in mourning as my sweet dam had succumbed to a poisoned bait

They never knew we bore the insects that carried the virus that took them down

Steps Toward Creating A Sustainable Destruction

Gonna get to universal healthcare that the government won’t play any part in

Looking to voluntarily solve climate change without hurting our great economy

We’ll maintain a woman’s choice as well as stop this murder of the innocent unborn

Protecting our right to bear arms while getting assault weapons away from criminals

We’ll preserve your privacy and secretly gather personal data vital to our national security

On our way towards reconciling literalist faith with the latest scientific research

Must remain the world’s only superpower while curbing all this military waste

We can reduce our slavish foreign dependence with the tough love of Big Oil and Clean Coal

We’ll find a way to fill our rotten jobs cheaply without using any illegal immigrants

We can end the global war on islamo-facism and we won’t ever have to cut and run

It’s possible to curb our national obesity and not even dictate to people what to eat

We’ll reconcile our treasured civil rights with the biblical ban upon gay marriage

There is a way to retain our beloved land yachts and still get cleaner, higher MPGs

We’re betting corporate agribusiness can self-regulate but still offer up safe, clean food

Surely they can save their rain forests as we recast golf course water hazards as healthy wetlands

Greedy corporate monomaniacs really are morphing into the wise stewards of our society

We’ll have them save more but continue to spend their retirement taxes immediately

Gonna protect tiny blind fish nobody catches as we keep our desert lawns real green

Giving grizzlies and wolves a place while protecting noble ranchers on federal lands

Won’t be pressured by the poll numbers but we must be attentive to the people’s will

Cannot permit their extremist agenda but we must break this legislative gridlock

We’ll continue to enjoy the fruits of cheap asian labor but end their immoral suffering

Our economic ills must be solved without any sacrifices by hardworking consumers

It’s possible to redraw districts in our favor while being sure that every vote still counts

We shouldn’t have to sacrifice any comforts to achieve a proud energy independence

A few tax incentive packages would likely engage the market to curb CO2 emissions

We’ll strike a political compromise to save both hydro power and a couple wild salmon

We will depend on gaming industry taxes as we promote personal fiscal responsibility

We can reach out to the rest of the world in the exceptionist manner our god intended

We must curb our vast wastes but without mandating lame recycling or cost to our convenience

Let us encourage sensible and thrifty habits without threatening consumer spending

We can feed them sugar, not make them brush then have them go find affordable dental care

We’ll force foreign markets open but grant subsidies and raise tariffs here at home

Have to stimulate the all-important economy even as we get this deficit under control

Corporate politicians shall wisely market their donor agenda while pursuing our common good

We’ll place almighty God atop our government even as we condemn islamic religious fanaticism

I Stood So Limply By

I stood by, and the best that I could muster up was just a couple squishy tears

I simply watched, numbed with shock, and did not stop the bulldozers gouging

I did not raise a finger as we eviscerated the very habitat that kept us all alive

I sat in silence reading of the disappearance of one species after another

I barely noticed our chances for survival as they disappeared in my rearview mirror

I did not press them to build things meant to last or which might even be repaired

I just let them go on de-humanizing animals into identical factory protein units

I bred, in a tacit acceptance of our witless and self-destructive overpopulation

I never even questioned that foolish, wasteful and expensive necessity known as war

I let them preach greedy unsustainable profit at the expense of all our futures

I watched as they spent more than they had on destructive toys that they quickly cast aside

I stood by as they made our important decisions in talks with their very own personal saviors

I deflected the many unrelated facts which pointed towards the need for real change

I observed from a distance as smugly smirking politicos confidently called the shots

I stood by and let simple mono-maniacal control freaks press their warped personal agendas upon us

I turned away from mounting evidence that we brought on our own slide into a dark abyss

I sat grimly on their sidelines as they played their shortsighted and selfish game

I stood by doing nothing to stop myself from being part of all that I condemned

I let them twist my angry silence into an approval of their boundless greed as our guiding light

I avoided conflict and let them carry out the wanton destruction they anointed as our progress

I simply kibitzed while they de-constructed this living earth and all its systems

I did not lift a finger as the lilies of the field were replaced by barren, hot, black asphalt

I looked right past the poverty, suffering and illness as I hurried on by to work every day

I stood by as it got hotter, drier and dirtier - convinced there was really nothing I could do

I only passively ignored their mindless, but expensive, mind-numbing media spectacles

I foolishly tended just to my own implanted needs thinking so would things work out alright

I stood by with but a blank look as a series of precious wonders disappeared forever

I did not get up and shout, much less so much as raise a hand in mild disagreement

I never even once protested the ecological holocaust of our convenience-driven advances

I stood by in silence as the teeming masses wasted or polluted all of our basic resources

I did not clean up the roadsides, beaches, rivers, lakes and forests that we fouled

I never mentioned how I despised their all-consuming pursuit of consumer goods

I stood by with hands free but not helping those who tried honestly to do better

I merely watched in amazement as we grew fatter and dumber, sicker and lazier

I did not speak out nearly enough to counter their glib lies and foolish promises

I leaned my fat belly on a shovel while the potholes grew and multiplied all around me

Tax Trash And Legalize Rocket Launchers

Take the automatic weapons away from those dirty swarming criminal scum

Yet give our private militia the same rocket launchers as our beloved army

Sure they should get the same social benefits just like any married citizens

But don’t publicize fat gays parading on floats wearing only stringy grape smugglers

Take care of the at-risk children from any mothers of any race, all the same

But require a tough examination and a license of both parents for every child

End this foolish, expensive environmentally dangerous ethanol nonsense for good

Subsidize grid-shared solar and wind generators on every rooftop, throughout the land

Constitutionally require a permanently-balanced government budget

Reduce military spending by 3/4ths over ten years starting last year

Open our doors to all who embrace our ideals of freedom and democracy

Stop automatically making the children of illegal immigrants citizens by birthright

Of course we must conduct more research on the potential effects of climate change, BUT...

We should become an example of reduced CO2 emissions to an entire consumer world

Triage medical treatment for the old, terminally-ill and hopelessly brain-damaged

Simply provide universal health care as another constitutional guarantee

Close down the bullshit gaming industry and replace it with regulated organic herb

Require a deposit on all packaging and thereby pay the poor to clean our lands of our litter

Issue every resident mandatory, tamper-proof biometric ID cards

Amend the constitution to guarantee a citizen’s right to privacy

Don’t let home equity spending consumers out of their foolish debts

Punish those who invented and sold them this Ponzi mortgage fiasco

End agricultural subsidies at once and forever and tax the use of fossil water

Put our outsourced labor force to work on roads, bridges and clean energy

Tightly control the recreational use of ATVs and snowmobiles on all our federal lands

Re-open public access to all our national forests through private second homes and mining

Conduct all government business only in English and make it a citizenship requirement

Make sure every child studies a second language all the way through primary school

End the un-mandated, suffocatingly-divisive two party control of our political process

Tax their trash and water the more they make and use per person

Quit ignoring the unwanted children being saved from the murder that is abortion

Be strong enough on defense to ask for better than their no review cost plus contracts

Stop being fruitful and multiplying without regard to the earth’s ability to sustain

Give up this foolish notion that earth and its creatures were put here by God for us to plunder

Even learn to look beyond GDP and unemployment figures in measuring our progress

Finally become good and faithful stewards, passing on as much as we were granted

Choices That Help Define Us

Is it that expensive new car and the big-screen hi-def DVD-TV?

Maybe just a warm old wool sweater and a good book when it’s cold

There’s an extra trip to the mall and lots of trash cans for the packaging

Or recycling all that is feasible even if nobody makes you, or pays you to do it

How about that 8 foot high pickup with the custom exhausts

Then there’s that cute little hybrid with all its hitech gizzies

Is it the money we shell out for expensive food, drink and the falsely servile help,

Rather than the work that goes into the creation of a meal on our own

Could be an oversized faux palace tended by a legion of anonymous illegales

Or possibly crawling on your knees to repair something that’s gotten broken

How about racing your son on loud smoky snowmobiles thru a blurred forest

Instead of snowshoeing in silence, searching for peace in that good silence

You could download a hundred songs and strike out with the iPod

Or strum a few chords and scribble out a couple verses of your own

Relax on the couch with beer and calorie-laden snacks for the big game

Alternatively, using the Internet, go into depth on some non-trivial issue

Is it struggling to find ways to keep spending more than you earn

Maybe embracing both hard work as well as building up a bit of savings

Hanging out barefoot in shorts and tees in a monstrous house all during winter

Turning down a more efficient heating system and dressing for the seasons

Saving time at the drive-thru and chowing down fast while still on your way

Eating stuff that didn’t come out of cans, that you cooked up on your own

Is it get-rich-quick schemes involving currencies, commodities and derivatives

Maybe ploddingly saving via conservative investments, year after year

Could it be first class flights to expensive resorts and fancy restaurants

Or going cheaply, traveling widely, eating locally and wearing little jewelry

There’s belief directed by holy books, prophets and literalist, revealed truths

Then there’s simple faith in the human struggle against the inevitable void

Maybe it’s always waiting for something that quickly disappears into the blur

Or is it striving to take pleasure in the task and not just its momentary completion

Having others just do as much for you as quickly as you can sign the bill

Or attaining a bit of technical mastery over your house, its contents and the cars

The Quiet Rushing

Stood still in long funeral lines as fighting broke out somewhere up ahead of us

Vowed to pretty women, all in white, who scattered yellow flowers out upon us

Saw men too strong to think, die violently justifying the mistakes of others

Heard frightened foods cry out as the smell of death filled their nostrils

Became tangled up in confusion after falling over the most obvious of riddles

Saw smoke rising in threat beyond their peaceful white steeples

Heard the quiet rushing back in, once I had finished all my shouting

Felt the life draining out of me, when we left you with nothing

Stood listening to the village bells filled with their simple reasons

Got sucked under dirty water and spit out from gray tailpipes

Lost all the real reasons but still kept right on working

Might have heard the silence dripping during long and sleepless nights

Watched the vultures grow fat as the songbirds slowly lost their feathers

Walked where they had always driven and finally realized how far

Escaped or was released up high into our blue, blue atmosphere

Left blank applications at the locked compound gates of invisible leaders

Roared through concrete canyons ignoring other’s children

Saw endlessly cheerful ads going on blankly without me

Made up my mind to just be happy and to keep to my meds

Was touched by their great suffering even behind my moving windshield

Heard a quiet sobbing I could not stop to recall for many hours

Saw hopeless widows watching their many children playing

Got struck hard inside as we shoveled thru your charred belongings

Grew older and slower but was in no way deemed to be the wiser

Stood up to be counted and was downsized, outsourced, laid off and forgotten

Limped off, looking for that quiet place I had heard of in their advertising

Ignored all that disturbed me for just as long as I could

Watched the fat and inactive be carried off slowly, somewhere far away

Saw meadows going brown and the trees drying out into waste paper

Wondered why the snow had stopped falling and it all gotten so expensive

Was bullied into illiteracy and a disdain for the magic of maths

Watched the wolves make a comeback until we showed them once again

Found my palms were still damp even as I sat trying to be calm

Cursed out my fictional savior for what I knew were my own mistakes

Hung up my clothes neatly even though they were worn out and filthy

Enjoyed the dying images produced when at last my breathing stopped