by David Chorlton
I
With all their appearances
on late night television
we can’t tell politicians
from comedians. The situation
is serious. Nobody knows
when to laugh.
II
The numbers just in
from the Nasdaq, the Dow
and the Sierra Club
show a bear market
with futures declining
at the same rate as the house sparrows
once common in our yards,
and a decline
in the growth rate
among trees worldwide.
III
Now these messages
from the manufacturers of pills
the side effects of which
overpower their healing properties
but whose presence
is the only way corporations know
to package hope.
IV
Finally sport. Or back to politics.
Either way it’s a race,
winner take all.
David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix for 30 years and come to love the desert around it. He recently won the Ronald Wardall Award from Rain Mountain Press for The Lost River, a chapbook whose contents reflect his unease with what is happening to our planet. More of his work, including paintings, is at his Web site.
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