Profit and poison
so unevenly divided
yet mercilessly entangled.
Sucking the sanctified dollar
from the captive consumer
and spewing the slag,
in its many guises,
where influence or resistance
is weakest –
poor Black and Brown neighorhoods,
sparse outlying communities
where underpaid workers and their families
trusted their bosses
with their health and their futures,
and the all too convenient and seductive
cyberspace
that has lured us past
our autonomy,
invading and mining
our desires and pre-existing conditions,
and asking us to pay more for protection
from hackers, scammers, and liars.
Our bodies, minds, and psyches
have been polluted,
for the sake of profit,
with dire, even deadly, distractions.
The insatiable pirates
care nothing for our health, humanity, or our lives,
and so let us stew in their poisons
as long as their path to billions
is greased.
But the jig is up.
Climate change, racial reckoning, and COVID 19
have raised the stakes for them too –
for us all –
maybe enough for the swelling
of a critical mass
to wrench power from depravity
and recreate our democracy.
Profit and Poison
