Poem: With our heads in the sand during the transit and eclipse

"burning down the house to roast the pig." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


The first wheel rolled around
The first adze was forged
Every tool and short-cut

Edged us to the brink
In our short dance
With Turtle Island

The machines started turning in 1900
And we started down a path
Toward the dark at the end of the tunnel

No one stands up for earth
But a handful of tree-huggers
Least of all the poets

Poet on poet on poet
Incesting like royals
With their heads in the sand

Becoming funded chinless wonders
For an audience of poets
Clapping for each other

We are in it and watching it
Pretending we're not in it
But carefully observing

For the sake of others
Writing it all down
For a doubtful tomorrow

The machines started groaning
When McKinley laid down his bones
Unloading their by-products

Onto unsuspecting skies
As we demanded encores refills and mas
And cursed the bottle turned up empty

Abboh's boys and girl's have run amok
The wheels and tools have run amok
There's no modulation

We can't slow back down
And run twice as fast
To keep up

The electric plantations hum
With fantastic machinery
Run around the clock

In Bayonne Richmond Kent Tacoma
Manteca South San Francisco The Bronx
Flint Long Beach and Cleveland

We leave vias rues expressways
Strasses avenidas and boulevards
A continent of skull orchard

Caught in flagrante
Pants down
Hands wedged in the cookie jar

No one points the guiltfinger
No one dares to finger or be fingered
And sweet mother earth struggles

To free herself
From the shackles
She turns off the rain

And takes back her Dodos and Whales
Snail Darters and Spotted Owls
Pygmy Hippotami and Flightless Cormorant

Vancouver Island Marmot and Gavial
Great Auk and Wild Ass
Tapir Kagu and Manatee

Carolina Parakeet and Dire Wolf
Coelacanth and Blackfooted Ferret
Snow Leopard and Przewalski's Horse

Glaciers virgin forests and monkey flower
Bigleaf Scurfpea and Spiny Rice
Interrupted Brome and Greensword

The infidels with battle fatigue
Sing the song
We know so well

I don't believe in earth
I just believe
In me.
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