When the voice of reason is drowned out...

The foolish student hears of the Tao and laughs aloud – Lao Tzu

when the people measure their success

by what they see in movies

honest work and a real education

must be viewed as the pointlessness of losers

when the old are not respected

even though they are still alive

and the latest thing is so important

the most recent must be forgotten

when the voice of reason is drowned out

by songs of clever hype

and the ignorant swell with a pride gained by rejecting learning

it is effortless to mold their children to be just the same

when accessibility means that ATVs and snowmobiles

should run free throughout our forests

then personal watercraft and vapid speedboats

can emit their smoky exhausts underwater

when the land is ripped and cut while still alive

without regret, much less any ceremony

domestic animals are held like hostages

inside concentration camps for slaughter and cellophane

when all we eat is poisoned by

petrochemical concoctions

that make for higher yields

mass production has won the day upon thy fruited fields

when societies forbid a woman's learning

but let her raise their leaders in bare feet

as they grow more ignorant and even poorer

they look outside for someone they can blame

when anonymous conglomerates

provide for all your needs

and interlocking directorates invisibly set the country's course

the ultimate seamless integration looms nearer every day

when strip malls drape all potentially profitable street corners

destroying our uniqueness

and digital signals coat us uniformly with slick advertainment

some of the disillusioned brothers take up vows of silence

when the government routinely informs us

not to eat the fish from our lakes and streams

and lets asthmatic children breathe diesel fumes on their way to school

regulation is expensive and could easily cost you jobs and money

when every year is up among the ten hottest ever seen

and all the glaciers on the equator melt like soft ice cream

and tropical diseases spread far to the north

the clean and killing cleaning frosts of winter disappear

when the government warns against junk science

and politicos rail against so-called fuzzy maths

they still ask us to believe the facts they cite

when pushing the agendas of their financial benefactors

when the media ignores humanitarian crises around the globe

and concentrates on chewy nonsense, safe for their advertisers

then the great cats and the primates can be driven into extinction

as the old trees are cut down and the pygmies are sent to live in town

when real men spend their free time

in expensive, brutish recreation

swilling canned drinks and greasy food

suddenly they are sixty with prostates swelled like lemons

when the citizenry disdainfully make no attempt

to grasp the way the things which support them work

and dismiss such tasks to others

they are quickly fleeced by crooked techies, they pay with overdue credit cards

when all the faithful pray to a god who they still believe

must bless their fair land the most every day

and is, with all certainty, playing on their side

they can admit of a solemn righteousness with all this in his hands

when all our government becomes an aristocracy

with royal families and traditions

their lawyers and lobbyists will rule the legislature

passing the requested laws of tithing corporations

when your land is a better and safer place to live

but you are not quite sure how or why

you know for certain that you must be for it,

for you definitely cannot be against it

when its either gay or sissy to worry about the planet

or think about the future

it becomes simpler to go off to some impoverished land

and pound a backwards people

when golf is considered quite a sport

even though you are forced to ride about in a little cart

and Doing Lunch is passed off as some form of real work

good jobs await other’s children in the future that you shape

when you waste a lot more than you were ever worth

yet your wants seem never to be fulfilled

and you are not quite sure where your desires come from

then media hypnosis has you blindly in its net

when you see the new construction and increased traffic every day

while on your long way once again to more pointless work

at last you will no longer even wonder

why it will never make a lot of sense

when there are always more people around this year

than there ever were the last

you realize the pointlessness of trying to escape the crowds

already gathered anywhere decent that you go

when all you seem to do is work

and the time goes by so fast

it is easy not to notice that

this vapidly-consumptive lifestyle cannot last

when you can look up suddenly

after thirty years have passed

and see there is no end in sight

what happens when you realize that you cannot run much longer?

when you have come so damn far that

all your dreams somehow don’t matter any longer

since you now have other interests

what can you look back upon that makes any sense at all?

When all the rain that falls cannot wet the soil

And all the days of winter cannot cool the air

How far are we, really, then

From those dusty camps full of haggard, begging refugees?

When all the wild places are convenient to identical corporate storefronts

And our forests become dull backyard amusement parks

At last the only wildness remaining in the West

Spews from our reckless minds

When all the fossil fuels have been guzzled down

And there is not enough water to go around

While the hot wind blows dust into every corner

How will our great war machines be run?

When no one can save up enough to provide for their own future

But the dirty screaming mobs demand an ever larger circus

Resource wars will provide us with safe and pleasant diversions

And things will keep on moving right along, in the same wrong direction

When the average Bangladeshi child is better educated than your son

You will, nonetheless, find him entitled to a future in the first world

For have not your surrogates: television, internet and his game consoles

forged him into a job-competitive leader of this new global order?

When even grandmothers are filled with pointless anger

Why are the Canadians, Germans and French so much less violent

Who made it so easy for you to hate and wound and kill

No matter if the enemy is your brother or a stranger in a foreign land

When we have wiped out all the charismatic mega-fauna

And the wildlife that children know consists of only

Stray cats, giant rats, flies, roaches and ugly spiders in their beds

Who could believe your old stories of clean water and fresh air?

When all the boomers are outsourced, downsized and laid off

they see that they have nothing left to show

except their monthly payments for sixty something foolish years

Note with what great style they ride off, leaving their mess in your lap

When the monsoon fails to come because the hot seas no longer circulate

More than a billion Indians will show us a new way

While a billion more hungry Chinamen build houses, schools and factories

On their very finest farmland which already barely feeds them

When all the porpoises are dead from military sonar and factory tuna fishing

There will be one less silly debate through which we have to suffer

And jobs and the economy can more easily assume their rightful places

Along with canned entertainment, at the center of our lives

When all the scowling Imams governing by the Koran are killed or captured

We can send in the evangelical missionaries to set them straight at last

A couple rigged and sorry elections and maybe a few fast food franchises

Should set them happily upon the glorious path of freedom and democracy