Poem: Stop-loss

By Jack Brummet

We can't slow back down

And run twice as fast

To keep up

While electric plantations hum 24/7

In Bayonne, Shanghai, Richmond, Tacoma,

Manteca, South San Francisco, Pittsburgh,

Flint, Bombay, Long Beach, and Cleveland.

Expressways and boulevards

Skein an incipient skull orchard.

We are caught in flagrante delicto, with our pants down

And hands wedged in the cookie jar.

No one dares to finger or be fingered

As 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, rain forests, and monkey flower,

Bigleaf Scurfpea and Spiny Rice,

Interrupted Brome and Greensword.

The infidels have battle fatigue

And sing the song we know so well:

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

              ---o0o---