By Taryn Ziegler
What if we
have it all wrong if we think we have
the key but the door has, in actuality,
always been open if the color red doesn’t
really represent anything bad after all and
the heft of your wallet is an empty indicator
of the meter of your supposed happiness
if we are
missing something
As a nation as a people as a global enterprise
striving forward churning the water hum-hum
like the whir of the machines pumping
out green and gold smiles matching the
salesman’s wiles how could you
do this to us
who are you, and what do you want?
It’s dark here but what I can hear is the
sound of my childhood piggybank clanking
and jangling with the spoils of my collection
I hoard these things gleefully but I don’t
really know
Why
I fight, wage war, with the numbers on my screen
creeping up dropping down occasionally transforming
in my hand to paper and metal but I
give, give it away and I grab, grab
for it
More
And in other corners you are not even allowed
freedom to piss when you please. my god you
can’t even piss when you please and when
you leave the screams of the machines
follow you all the long way home merging
and converging with those of your child
alone
And some are starving, and some are marveling
at the obscenity of it all and then turning
and burning their own souls in the fire
As we walk to our dinner spot
we crush countless heads under our feet
Clamor 