Consider the Source

I don’t think about what I can’t see,

it don’t count if it ain’t staring at me.

Little choices I cannot recall,

get it quick or not at all.

Every bargain has a hidden cost:

what was saved? what was lost?

Forty color-ways and free returns:

Where’s it made? What’d they earn?

Is it enough to add to cart

with buyer’s remorse?

Well if you don’t know where to start,

consider the source.

What becomes of what I throw away?

Broken cord, takeout tray,

leaky battery and shattered screen,

spilling ink I can’t clean.

Is it too much to be undone,

too late to change course?

Before condemning anyone,

Consider the source.

I set the table for an easy meal,

I don’t mind what I can’t feel:

Tired turkey in a crowded cage,

he can’t peck, he can’t rage.

Little choices and the way they spread,

Who must starve so we’d be fed?

I don’t think about what I can’t see,

but now that bird won’t stop staring at me.

I tap my heart before I dine,

but quickly divorce

from all your agony down the line,

and all I endorse.

Is it enough to add to cart

with buyer’s remorse?

Well if you don’t know where to start,

consider the source.

Pour

Solvents and paint,

poured down the drain.

There were complaints,

only forty years late.

Peculiar taste

of acetates,

migraine headaches,

growing cellular rates.

What we pour in the soil,

whether poison or oil

will eventually spoil.

The solvents spilled

down Cedar Hill,

feeding a well

and a weeping willow.

That man next door

lived here before.

But he knew the score

when his tree hit the floor.

What we put in the ground,

whether planted or plowed,

will eventually be found,

it will come back around.

What we pour in the soil,

whether poison or oil,

will eventually spoil.

Blight

Quickly, I need it!

Shipped in a day,

oceans away.

I’m willing to pay

to get the best that i can,

the best that I can get.

I’ve got to feed it!

High in demand,

short in supply.

I’m not a bad guy,

I do the best that I can,

the best that I can do.

Caterpillars hatching,

swinging on thread

with fanatical spread,

they need to be fed,

to get the most that they can,

the most that they can get.

Defoliating,

chawed up trees

with skeletal leaves,

a many-legged disease.

They do the best that they can

the best that they can do.

Sleeping and sated,

nesting on the bark,

evolving in the dark,

preparing to disembark.

Carnage

Off the side of the road,

branches trimmed and grasses mowed,

there is a snake with his head disposed.

Toad hops out of the briar

and underneath my spinning tire,

there he remains emulsifier.

Accidental damage,

casually maimed.

Incidental carnage,

collateral pain.

Bird smacks into the glass,

shaking, heaving heavy gasps,

settling down, she heaves her last.

Fawn gets caught in my fence,

trying to clear but slams against,

with every leap a bloodied mess.

Accidental damage,

casually maimed.

Incidental carnage,

collateral pain.

A Great Flood

Of this I’m uncertain:

will we be forgiven

should there come a great flood

to drown out our decisions?

We were only children,

silly what we did then:

scooping up the tadpoles,

left them on the pavement.

Faultless in our innocence,

charming in our ignorance,

pissing in the reservoir,

didn’t know the difference.

Of this, I’m uncertain:

will we be forgiven

should there come a great flood

to drown out our decisions?

Deactivate

While I was scrolling,

shocked and bored,

I came upon the news

of your departure

from this ailing place,

from which you chose

‘deactivate’,

While out my door

and down the street:

deflated bodies,

empty meat,

a running dog on trailing leash

was free to roam but not released

From gravity and malady

and sheer corporeality,

anatomy in disrepair

catastrophe in open-air.

They’re telling me:

Ascend the stair!™

eternity in betaware.

While you’re awaiting your result

allow me to present an ultimatum:

either save this place

or opt out and deactivate

before your body’s obsolete

abandon ship, reserve your seat.

But if you transfer incomplete,

do not refresh, do not delete

Your treasury of memory,

your tendency for reverie.

Diffuse your being everywhere:

a remedy beyond compare.

Be not afraid,

do not be scared

to swiftly cross that thoroughfare

O take my hand, I’ll take you there:

eternity in betaware.

Calamity

Who will look after what we leave behind?

Well-hidden waste,

out of sight, out of mind.

Mountains of metals and slime,

hard to find by design.

Rotting garden where crud and convenience combine.

Over calamity we climb,

sure we’ll get this right next time.

Who will look after what we leave behind?

Still-burning barrier of smoldering pine,

Cover-less creatures confined,

climbing vines, running blind,

seeking shelter and safety in sudden decline.

Over calamity we climb,

sure we’ll get this right next time.