Perhaps Not Global Warning
I'm not a hopeful man.
Too much I've seen of human desperation, pride and
greed
that seem to drive all thought,
or drive thought out
in favor of soft pleasures.
Even more do I fear the man who knows he's right and can quote
God.
I'm sick to death of visions, and am near to giving up
on speeches,
smiling bites of toothy politicians,
those who swear
by polls,
who in the night
practice in front of mirrors to prove what’s wrong is right.
There is an end,
an end that comes to light if given time,
a time so marked by strife that even what we thought of
once as life
becomes too great, too costly
and we flee to cut our wrists, take pills,
collapse in fright.
In short, we're out of luck.
We've fucked ourselves, this planet and our neighbors,
flayed the poor,
ignored the struggling species,
cut the trees,
proclaimed ourselves the masters,
laughed at need,
driven those in despair to murder and hearts to bleed.
And so the chickens roost.
They have come home by thousands and by millions,
breaking trees
and filling streets with bird shit,
weighing down
the wires, snapping lamp posts, stripping clean
the fields,
the last green forests
where they glean what possibly is left to serve for food.
And all the while computers chirp and whir, as mindless
as the numbers that they brew
and drink up like hot chocolate
and think it good.
And this is how we end: the insects hum, the lively and metallic,
yet a while,
and then return to silence,
cold as ice.
The absence of compassion swells and builds
to grind down growing mountains,
so enfold
what glaciers leave behind:
smooth rocks and mud.
Snow blindness we could call it and remain free of politic bias,
or speak the truth
and simply call it blindness,
pride and greed.
The insects that are here await their turn, but they may not
last long enough
to learn
that greed does not give back,
pride does not burn.