A Treatise on Social Darwinism and Intelligent Design
by Jon Wesick
There is no truth, only politics.
For the Iraqi Marsh Arabs
the speed of light may indeed be infinite.
And you, who have not grown up on the ice and snow,
cannot impose your acceleration of gravity
on the Utkuhikhalingmiut Eskimo.
How do you measure the vibration
of a seal’s death spasm on a harpoon
or a wildcatter’s thrill at a new well’s
plume of light, sweet crude?
You say the polar ice is melting.
I say our economy is growing.
All observation is subjective.
So until you become a shareholder
or feel the preacher’s hot breath on your neck,
do not burden me with your interpretations.
Somewhere beneath the sands of Iraq
tons of yellowcake uranium lie buried.
Even if it costs a million lives,
I will not stop until I find them.
Jon Wesick has a Ph.D. in physics, has practiced Buddhism for over twenty years, and has published over a hundred poems in small press journals such as American Tanka, Anthology Magazine, The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Edgz, The Kaleidoscope Review, Limestone Circle, The Magee Park Anthology, The Publication, Pudding, Sacred Journey, San Diego Writer’s Monthly, Slipstream, Tidepools, Vortex of the Macabre, Zillah, and others. His chapbooks have won honorable mentions twice in the San Diego Book Awards.