And Create a New World

Who decided America's

beauty should be hidden

beneath asphalt and concrete?

Profit motives serve up

excuses for the swallowing

of all natural, pastoral

pleasures by corporations,

cities and suburbs.

What happened

to the wide frontier?

It seems to be missing

along with the teeming

herds of prairie wildlife

that once scattered

across the open plains.

When did this nation stop

being Woody Guthrie's

promised legacy, your

land and my land?

As fences caged

wilderness, reining

freedom of movement

and lifestyle, individual

choices and opportunities

narrowed into servitude

to one corporate

master or another.

Where does all poison

polluting our rivers

originate and spread?

Dams wall up

waterways fish travel

to spawn and feed,

while factories dump

their sludge and cities

flush chemical waste

right into the aortal

veins of earthly life,

lapping genetic deformity

and pestilence up

against muddy shores.

How can so many

just sit back and allow

so few to set every

agenda and determine

the world's future?

The power of change

vests in the crowds

who gather together

and speak with one

voice, creating a clamor

which cannot be ignored

as they pile out

of offices and cease

filing income taxes -

standing up to wealth

and looking suffocating

waste and consumerism

right and the eye

as they boldly cry out

"I'm mad as hell

and I'm not gonna

take it anymore."

Why is it all we hear

spoken anymore

are discouraging words?

From newscasters

to radio personalities

to politicians to bloggers

to everyone on the street,

didactic opinion unwilling

to listen to anyone else

dominates the American

soundscape, promoting

one point of view

or another, but always

serving the personal

interests of some group

of the wealthy class.

No one seems to understand,

acquiescence is acceptance,

and the failure to take back

your own birthright: freedom,

liberty, natural beauty, a clean

and pristine landscape

with a widely diverse

teeming wildlife, cooperation

of effort for the benefit

of everyone, peace and security

without violence, eradication

of all weapons of mass destruction,

yes the failure to demand

and obtain hope for tomorrow

through true human destined

legacy is your own doing

and expresses greed and lust

and envy and anger and pride

and laziness and gluttony -

and you raise them to the nth

degree of exponential power

as humanity overpopulates

the planet like a virus or cancer;

yet, the mass of you together

can change course anytime

you decide you want

and create a new world.

The phrase, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore," is a quote from the 1976 released and copyrighted movie "Network," produced by Howard Gottfried for MGM, written by Paddy Chayefsky, and directed by Sidney Lumet and is used without anyone's permission.

Globalization's Demented Domination

lead me to a world without all this... killing

Secret agent cabals fester with dispassionate malice,

devising sinister plots to behead elected officials

and advance conquest's master plan: globalization's

demented domination. Freaking button-down, Johnny

Appleseed wannabes strew iMacs across every rain forest,

converting indigenous farmers into multinational

corporate serfs, while concrete pours and asphalt

paves over forests, forever staining green with gray.

Beady-eyed Clinton clowns left over from coups

of Latin America past gleam with eyes sparkling

and hands rubbing together like the forearms of flies

pondering their pounce on the next pile of shit

that smells like money. Meanwhile, the land of once

golden streets, merely a glittery mirage, dilapidates

into ghetto streets where drive-by shooters fail

to grasp that the gang from the turf next door

ain't their enemy, it's the circus freaks running

things in State Capitols and Washington, D.C.

who pit brother against brother, dividing

to make conquest all the easier: the same old

Conquistador strategy, selling notions of fountains

of youth to the masses while the wealthy stake

claims to the imagined El Dorado under the next

oil well or in the patent office mines once proud

people slave in and still can't make ends meet.

The virulent strains of contagious opulence

already swim in the veins of elitist pigs who snort

in filthy sties spreading a corpulent pestilence

of narcissism and desire. Who among you will pick

and share flowers from a new garden, fertilized

by the rotting remains of withered capitalism?

After Eons of Slumber

Seductively urgent dawn
Drips from sunrise ewers
Into leaf-filled eave gutters
On moonless, October nights
When the divining hag reappears.
Fragrant melodies from oracles’
Lips part foggy veils
As pointed tridents whirl,
Staining glacial tors,
Until rug rats initial steps
Intercept furtive glances issued
From furrowed brows. Snickered
Under the breath are the ocean’s
Whispered asides – beneath
Boardwalks and piers – “A carnival
Or a feast?” She wondered
Down roving-laned byways
To bridge an abysmal chasm:
White-bread-blues imitating
Intuitive, sulfuric, tea leaves
Tuned to a Delphic frequency
On Apollo’s alarm clock
Awaken him from reveries
After eons of slumber!