The Land of Waste

The Land of Waste

To sow dissent's Verboten; the last remnants of belief

Clutch at hearts we think beyond repair. The blind

Watch their loved one's bodies interred. The dearly departed.

Sweet Nature calls softly, but that won't last much longer.

Freighted, as She is, with empty bottles, plastic wrap,

Discarded face masks, cardboard boxes, cigarette butts

Or other debris from human blight. The nearly discarded.

Lasting impacts, from the continuing abuse of entire sectors

Of lush rainforests, pristine streams, and fragile deserts

Have only started, no one's left who dares to address 

Them. 

By the brackish waters I sat down and wept ...

Sweet Nature defiled by algae blooms, gonyaulax 

the color of blood resumes

Another season of toxic tides, A day in the surf tossed

For Disney rides.

Like diapers and lighters and ammo shells

Gloves and gowns from the hospital tells

A story of waste: humans lives once selfie-posable

Discarded as thoughtlessly as any other disposable

Item.

So down my spine slides a shiver of fear,

A rattle of bones like a chandelier

Shimmering and quivering from yet another quake 

From the earth's web of fractures made

In order to slake

Mankind's heedless thirst for cheap energy.

Its restless demand for electricity

Overrules all logic, scorns all calls for restraints, 

Despite the grim picture it remorselessly paints

Of a future that makes a pandemic appear

The least of our worries, a phantom to fear

Pro tem.

 The Fire Sermon summons visions of hell

Hieronymous Bosch meets William Tell

Aiming a shaft at Carmen Miranda's 

Head freighted with fruit: he dislikes her law.

Reading people their rights is just propaganda,

The right to keep silent having one grievous flaw, 

Bearing then, as one must, every arrow and sling, 

Your compliance must everyday bring, when you haw,

and hem.

A rat, a man a honky-tonk's Madam

Drag their blood-streaked belly across the macadam

On a wintry eve, while cars streaking past them

Bear their passengers by, it's too chilly to stop

Or even slow down;

Roaring motors, blaring horns, and screeching tires

All insist on movement, in maintaining

 the rat-race to nowhere: each spark plug that fires, 

demands a frantic pace. In big city or town,

Or village of Hobbits, wheeling passersby only open 

Their windows to hawk gobbets

of Phlegm.

 

So don't go fishing in the Erie Canal, 

Or sailing down the Potomac in sloop or skiff, 

If you don't catch cholera, you'll catch a whiff

Of benzene, or sulfur, or Adam Schiff.

For everything you've stuffed in a Recology bin

To recycle re-use re-purpose rescind

Ends up in some landfill, or incinerator,

And from there back into the water or air; 

Like microplastics, your waste ends up everywhere.

 So love her or leave her or maybe you hate her

But Columbia of the Ocean is no longer

a Gem.