Zeal inflames guts and brain—gurgles, boiling—
Creates this piercing patter that arrays
Fresh agitation. Sound patterns roiling—
Image, meter, rhyme (nothing too outré).
A consequential question: to argue
Or evoke? Evocation’s all the rage
These days! Spin that gossamer web; eschew
Clarity (false gem!) for feeling—engage
Tears, smell, sensual tingles (luring flesh)—
Evoke with humming words! All very nice.
Did I mention, I’ve one crop left to thresh?
And, frankly, evocation won’t suffice
Because I wish to save the world before
I die, and poetry’s my only tool.
I could, of course, evoke a hue—rosy,
Particulate, mordant nuclear ghoul
That cooks us inside out—suggest that bang
(Not whimper) will likely mark our stark end.
But evoking doom won’t do; we must hang
These fomenters—and that takes argument!
So, how can the world be saved? Not easy;
Earnest blood must drip. Those who speak to god
(Metastasizing tumors!) must be freed
From spiteful life! No more crusades, jihad,
Spewed hate proving my god’s bigger, can quaff
More juice than yours! Yawah, Allah, Krishna,
Even wussy Buddha: begone! There’s half
Your wars right there—and deadliest by far!
That leaves those simpler wars—plain thievery—
Less vicious. After all, we do not blow
Up what we lust to possess! Misery
Is not the aim—just riches—to wallow
In wealth. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to prop
Economies rather than crush those fraught,
Miserable masses—build up, not drop
Our clever bombs, weeping at what we’ve wrought?
And there’s the other half of wars, right there!
I have not time, nor wit, to diminish
God engendered hate and corporate greed—
Alas, my rant remains unfinished . . .
(8/30/07)