Like a sound you can hear
when nothing is there
long after it’s gone
it lingers on.
Yet, people claim to hear crickets
when something uncouth is said,
or when a joke goes awry.
Yet crickets are what I hear
when there is nothing to hear.
They’re fewer now, you know.
They paved over the old sycamores,
and the bugs and birds lost their homes.
And without the trees and bugs and birds, the food chain and ecosystem collapsed.
It was ravaged by greed.
Rich getting richer.
3,000 dollars a month rent
going to people already making money hand over fist.
Capitalism is a nasty habit.
Old, freezing up, and corrupt.
The only interest they have is “I.”
They ask, “How do I get more [fill in the blank (i.e. usually money, i.e. whatever our species decides equates to power on this planet)]?”
Their power lies in a made-up system
of metals and former trees
being exchanged at different numerical rankings
for items of varying arbitrarily determined worthinesses.
(What is worthy?)
Greed.
Greed that uprooted native peoples from their homes.
Their lives.
Their homes.
So much greed.
So much grief.
It bleeds us of our ambition and tells us what to want.
Someone else
tells us
what’s important
to us.
Creams to make us younger
In this youth-obsessed culture.
Youth-obsessed, future-afraid.
Stay young and don’t think about what all those plastic vials are doing to your people’s future home.
They’ll ravage her,
They’ll bleed her,
They’ll take everything,
and not even ask her her name.
For coal, for oil, for metals and made-up paper.
She won’t have any air left to spare.
(Who decided that one life was more valuable than the next?
Who are these destructive, scaly dragons with their hoards?)
It’s getting late and capitalism keeps me up.
But even though I don’t like the air, I just can’t stop breathing it.
I really hope Jane Fonda has a good plan for this.
FOOTNOTE
The line “But even though I don’t like the air, I just can’t stop breathing it” was inspired by the lyric “I don’t like this air
But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop breathing it” in Built to Spill’s song “Center of the Universe.”
Casey's Shadow Cat Imaginarium 