Premature Blindness

We learn to turn
and look the other way.
Premature blindness syndrome.
Selective forgiveness for
unquestionable malfeasance
and crimes against humanity.

So addicted we've become
to the buffer
between the skin of our bodies
and the grotesque torment of
"other."

Ray Anderson and Paul Hawken
sing the praises of Walmart.
Two champions of the
great and growing green Grail.
Pawns of the Goliath King
that gobbles all
with a gestation so fantastic
we can't see the limbs for the leaves.

The king's mistress is Facebook.
His queen is the IMF
and the board is so strewn with
toppled knights and bishops
that we refuse to accept the verdict
of CHECK
forgetting the cruelties of war
MATE.

Whole cultures tumbled
eco systems disrupted, the
veins of our mother slit open
and oil pours out into
streams and rivers
crowded byways no longer
reverberating the echo of
Mark
Twain.

Instead we bookmark
our favorite website
in the ocean of temptation and lost
cause.

Who was it worth saving?
Was it our children? The vast
expanse of some vague
promise
or gentle handshakes with
fellow countrymen and
distant allies

perhaps new connections
a kinship with all
living things
a symbiotic defiance
to chaos
a hopeful effort to
renew our spiritual stake
anchored to the belly
of all
creation.

Will you have me? Am I
welcome here?
Who is asking? Who is
listening?
Who am

I started to...
would it be ok
what time is it
I really should be

On
My
Will you? Can you?
Do you have the time?

Does anyone really know
what time it is

Surely we can overcome this
premature blindness
Surely we can navigate
this narrow stretch
of universe.

Cheeseburgers lined together
circling the globe until
billions and billions have
been
Mcfucked
by the Great and Powerful
McFucker.

and now we turn
and look the other way
so accustomed we've become
to licking the boots of
those who kick us.

A flicker casts a shadow
dancing on the wall.
Somewhere the source of light
rumbles. Rhythm.

And a captain announces safe passage:
Mark
Twain.

Across the shore
a boy slings a stone like a rocket
aimed at a nameless giant
while the serpent gladly swallows
its tail in perfect symmetry with
the ten thousand things