Those lives that every day peer
into burned out, low down, blood-spotted,
dirtied air and flooded streets.
I see them bury their young
from bullets or meth.
I see what breaks them,
what has been injected
with capital’s
hypodermic’s plunger.
I see their work schedules, the price of eggs.
I see their souls scared
purple and blue, their lives fragile
as sea shells,
and I understand why they move
their hearts from their own chests
into the chests of Trump, Jesus, Lenin,
Hitler, Dr Phil.
Because they are alone and unable
to get what they need, what we all need.
Because we all are the wrong age,
skin, weight, profession, religion, gender.
Even I with some privilege want more God/Marx/Magic,
whatever lets people inherit their own Earth.
Because it was not he/she/it who
set things up like this.
This obscene land of begging
and obscene stealing.
The Jeff Besos ilk who smash paychecks
of millions of bread winners
to enlarge their own monster jackpots.
And everyone who wants change
is so afraid to burn down the banks
because they tag you as Commies
or dummies.
Because the politicians always say
it’s the wrong time,
the wrong candidate
—but mostly the wrong time —
for health,
for tuition,
for teachers,
for wages,
for peace,
for resistance,
for everything.
But it is always the right time
for Exxon
for Lockhead
for Harvard grads
for the F.B.I. and
for not
burning down this house
of emptiness and terrible crimes.
For not building a house
of prosperity
that stretches to all the Detroits,
that turns rivers transparent
and blue again,
and grows fish that aren’t leaking,
and furnishes fresh green
things—bell peppers and apples,
and small farms to replace liquor stores,
and lets air smell like orange peels
and eyes light up again
for another golden age—
a post Wall Street uber alles
renaissance—when
finally the gods
step down from the sun
and fill the void again.
