Every minute wasted in meetings is a minute closer to the death of our home.
Poetry needs no explanation.
Third world country with perfect teeth
One armed man with pockets crammed
Full of prescription opiates sold at cost
Of less than a burger for a supply of 200
While Johnny in the house next door
Is dying of starvation since his pregnant
Illiterate mother cannot pass the mandatory
Drug test required by all employees at the
Local Walmart Superstore where her sister
And her common law husband both clean
Bathrooms on a part-time basis for seven
Dollars an hour for twenty hours every week
While they wait for papers to come through
Mr. Gallegly promises to send those very papers
In immediately, perhaps tomorrow, if he remembers
© CJ Campbell September 2011
Let’s Talk
The youth of the world have woken up
Are reclaiming rights taken by greedy
Grasping hate-mongers
Who have long held sway
That is, the world outside The USA.
The youth of The USA are still making
Appointments
To discuss future plans
With highly paid,
Totally misguided
Accountants, attorneys and therapists
With a collective batting average
Averaging
Less than .010
In the last decade.
Witness:
Wall Street,
Housing,
Banking,
Health care
The Supreme Court,
Bush-Gore.
Any number of serial killings
At least we lead
The world
On some things
Wake up America,
Things are happening
While you are fast asleep
Do Something, Dammit.
© CJ Campbell August 2011
0826110300
Panic mode has become the norm
We suffer from it
Suffer for it
And I wonder
If we can
Shed ourselves from the effects
Noises in the night make us
Huddle under blankets cuddle
Partners ask them “That a gun?”
Turn the TV on
Did they catch Gaddafi yet?
Will Irene damage our house?
I know, we live in Idaho
But you never know
The weather service is always wrong
And you can’t be too careful
With the crazies all around us
Fetch me another Diet Coke
Need to wash this diet candy bar
Down before I turn the lights back low
It’s 3am already, man watching that
Police chase through downtown Dallas
Sure got me going and you sure know how
To please. What’s that? Don’t squeeze
The trigger I left a bullet in the cham...
© CJ Campbell August 2011
The Loud Crude Hairless Animals
The loud crude hairless animals are at it once again
They simply do not understand their role in the grand
Scheme of life on this planet, let alone this planet’s
Pivotal nature in the universal plan for life. We stand
To lose so much if these talking apes continue to
Burn and waste precious resources in their silly quest
To control their fate. A fate beyond the grasp of any
Being living now or yet to be. This species thinks it best
To kill in the name of peace; to consume in the name
Of preservation; to speak and listen simultaneously
A trick no other species ever learned, therefore
No need to speak, to communicate spontaneously
By this action, on this day, the council now decrees
Flood them out, take the oceans up another 10 degrees
© CJ Campbell July 2011
Ring of Fire
The preacher called the demons up from down below
To chastise all the sinners sitting in the pews
Unaware that raging all around the building
Built with stone and wood and glass and superstition
Was a greater force than even he
The steward of all truth
As mankind perceived truth to be
Waiting to spring
Stone began to groan and crack
Wood burst into devouring flame
Cacophonous glass shards shattered
Only superstition fed on that monstrous thing
As it raced across the southern half of the planet
Sweeping all before it in its gargantuan appetite
For death and destruction. No unifier here
A separator only, bent on tearing apart the world
Headed north on an island hopping tramp steamer
Chose not to make land fall at other destinations
Until it reached some northern isles where preparations
Are made in advance for the advent of these monsters
The beast this time had a more urgent message
For those with ears to hear
A more important and timely message
One with dire consequence for tomorrow
“Remember who you are” it said
“Remember to take care of me” it said
“If you continue to behave
as though the planet was put here
for your benefit,
I will remind you
of how wrong you are
more,
and more frequently.
You are part of nature.
You do not control me.”
© CJ Campbell March 2011
My heart bleeds for the victims and their families in Japan and New Zealand
Today we are all very small in the face of the infinite.
I am reminded of Shelley’s Ozymandias: “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair”
Ozymandias
Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
