by Spiel
i just don’t care about the daily hundreds of…
how can i care about another hundred casualties
piles and piles mounting up in pounds of
dead meat on their streets
i don’t care if the meat is theirs or ours
i don’t care if it is men or women
chickens or children or donkeys
same as i don’t care about the heaps of pounds of burgers dispensed
by mcdonald’s in one year or twenty years or fifty
i am certain it must be in the billions by now but i will say this
at least that fast-meat giant puts out
for real exchange in return for its primetime
to show off its meat
only it’s we who have to cough out the billions
for the tens upon tens of thousands of pounds of bloody
somewhat skinned and oft-times conveniently partially boned
and much too often so blown-to-bits-it-can’t-be-shown
raw man-meat voraciously consumed by our t.v.s
to teach us not to care
where our consumption dare not matter anymore
and it does seem that it is working
because i do not care
but i do wonder
might the fluid nature of blood plasma become more frightening
in the last days when we all cave to wal-mart
each of us squeezed into its aisles there and hacking
out bucks for a high-wired much wider so much flatter new plasma t.v.
or might that fluidity become even more delicious more and more
thus suspending the red of its reds
even more extravagantly than ever before
like gloss lipstick on the whore we have not yet dreamed
because she can only be seen IF one is wide-awake
as she torpedoes thru our own front door
the poet Spiel is a tight-wired author painting naked portraits of humankind, thin-layering its hirsute beastiness and, on rare occasion, revealing its humanity. his spoken word c.d. "breathing back words," a collaboration with music/soundman Jack Moss, will be realeased in late 2007. his most recent chap, "come here cowboy: poems of war," is available from www.puddinghouse.com.