Tag Archives: greed

Citizens United

I wish I had enough
to budget for my vote
the cost of the ear
my representative
long since entombed in gold.

While we scrawl on paper
which evil is lesser
our betters tell us
that they are citizens
and they are united

behind something greater
than any we could wield,
as many zeros
trailing as for us lay
ahead, there to impede;

for though voting is free
positions cost money
and it behooves them
to give money power
while we still reward greed.

We too are citizens
but are not united,
we blame each other
for the lack of funding
we would need to contend

but if I could afford
to bend the golden ear,
I’d cry out in pain,
give voice to our freedoms
dying in avarice.

Kings of the Sea

Lobsters, I’m told
have no natural ending.
Back when they were frowned upon
not worth the water that would cook them
they’d become so large they’d horrify
the mind.

But somewhere
someone said,
 “delicious.”
and quickly,
we found the strength to overcome
building giant machines to scoop
them off the seabed
like clams from a shell.
We subjugated them
harvested them
until nothing of the monster was left but
these tiny little things you could pick up
one hand.

Now, bigger ones,
unimpressive youth in the shadow of their ancestors
are kept safe
on pedestals
where we can catch
a glimpse of those past monsters
through a cage of glass
beneath fluorescent lights.
A circus thing
alone and delicious.

Love

Major Briggs intones his greatest fear,
tortured, tied up and drained,
“That love is not enough.”

Love is not enough

More is left unsaid than is spoken.
Consider now this mystery,
invoke those dead words.
What shape do they take?
Are they answers or questions?

Perhaps love became too much
and when the heartless could find none within,
they manifested it
a product of those things they could wield.
Wealth, power, fame, control
all the monsters love was meant to shield
instead empowered.

Here now, we retreat- overwhelmed;
our love too hard to bring
en masse against their replacements
Reduced and redundant
in a world that suffers only the effortless to survive.

Major Briggs is dead,
as well as the actor who played him
but his fear is still there in me.