The stonewall is crying mortar out through its ustulated pores,
And the sun is drawing squatty pictures on the needled grass:
Shadow people with starchy legs and thighs.

Mom says we need rain because her flowers are dying,
Because the earth has become so bloated that it burps dust
And ashes.
Because the sky is bleached with more pollution than clouds,
And because it’s raining more dead birds than water.

If all the flowers fade to gray and all the leaves burned,
And the sky was sudoriferous
Because every rubber tire that is burned creates another hole in the atmosphere,
And I recycled every single plastic
Instead of letting some inadvertently slip into the trash can…
What then?

I have been injected with ketamine and ketalar
And I have been taught and brainwashed to follow all orders like a Myrmidon,
And I have been billboard-burnt and sun-starved for so long
That all protection is futile.
I am a production of the masses
And of cosmetic and materialistic dreams.

I wonder if I will have to tell my children
That the sky is actually somewhere under
The thickening residue of black smog and oily smears:
Rank leftovers from the prior generation.

I wonder how society has become so completely
Infiltrated by consumerism.

And then I recall my recent sporadic spending
And I know the answer.

I am the answer,
And that sickens me
Disgusts me.
…
To a point
Because I can somehow
Talk away my materialistic compulsions
Because all my clothes are used
…
Perhaps it is the talking away
That does more damage than the
The actual consumption.

I spend less to buy more and I buy more to spend less
And I have fallen into the effective brainwashing
Of numbers and digits and popularity.

I have bought into the beautiful aesthetic lies
And I have allowed them to color my soul
With gold rings and bracelets and new clothes and shoes.

The stonewall is crying through its ustulated pores
And the sun is too busy drawing squatty pictures of people carrying shopping bags
To notice that today I am watering the lawn before
Recycling yesterday’s waste.