Your crowning spires
your towering glories
of glass
brick
and steel
you have stolen
the deer that roamed these hills
before you leveled them to make
roads of concrete
You've sired the ghettos
and molded men into vagrants
their ladies
are now roaming the streets
looking for recyclable trash
or pinning notes on doors offering
to clean the offices
to fluff the carpet
for your expensive shoes
to walk on!
Walking to your desk
phoning to make another
deal to develop
more human waste
Your deal with those who will give
the nod much like the
wild mustard nods...
nodding to me this morning...
it agreed that it was perfectly fine for all
the tiny Finches to nest
in the near-by willows.
It nodded that it heard the
trees crash when they
fell
It nodded that it did hear
the crack of the
eggs the birds had laid
and it
nodded that
that 'yes, it's sad' there's no
picketing
when the abortion of their babies takes
place - no controversy, as to
whether it was legal
moral, or right
to kill
unborn Robins!
The token playgrounds;
the basketball poles
the nets that hang
still hang while you
hung
the homeless
at the same time!
The nets swing - rotted from rain
and sun
the wind blows the truth
it shreds the cotton
as you shredded the lives of so
many now
displaced!
Chain-link walls are twisted; bent - backs are broken
like the bottles from the near-by bar
where the unemployed spend their checks
and welfare dollars
because they'll never make
enough to get out
so why not watch the bubbles
take their troubles
up to the sky
like smoke spirals
from your
industrial chimneys!
And where is the land that grew the food
you dehydrate and package
so you can send to the victims
of foreign wars
you started to insure
your energy resources
that fuel our cars, trains, planes, and
future wars?
The baby is in a cardboard box
maybe abandoned
or maybe just a cradle in the corner
of the cold-water flat
The cereal is in the cardboard box
but there are little cartoon characters
to cut out
and a toy to play with
while mom is out mopping
and dad is out sweeping!
The cardboard box carries the paper
and the news
gets printed
on that paper
That paper tells of sorrow
that paper tells of prosperity
that paper burns nicely
when you add a few sticks
so you can warm your hands
by firelight
before you go to sleep
on the streets!
The cardboard box
makes a great shelter
if it once housed a refrigerator
for the appliance store
The cardboard box is my boat if I believe it to be;
my car is my coffin if I don't find a warm blanket
for the night
and no one knows my name!
The birds and I cry; the Golden Rod and I nod together
the mist still seeks me out
though it has to bend and
stretch harder now that
the buildings block its path!
The morning sun is reddened by pollution
yet it glows in my heart
and the music I hear
is not coming from your newly-built symphony hall; the
Art's Center exhibits - no painting as real to me
as the one pervading my pathway
while I walk over
to smell that April violet that somehow found a reason,
and a way
to bloom!
Diane Stirling-Stevens - Nevada
