corporate greed poems

The Scout – A Poem by Roy Pullam

He came
To all the games
Sitting high
In the stands
Hoping to not gather attention
Watching carefully
The kid’s moves
Without the ball
The grace
Of the seventeen year old boy
He followed
After practice
Deep into the inner city
Knowing the mother
Cleaned offices
In the gleaming towers
Downtown
No father
But four younger children
The apartment crowded
But empty
Of so many things
That mattered
The family’s only hope
The skills
That came
With the basketball
No other route
Lay beyond the drugs
Beyond the violence
She saw everyday
On her way to work
The scout
Not the only one
Sniffing around
Since the headlines
Men whose Gucci shoes
Normally never
Walked the halls
Of the tenement
Came visiting
With promises
Of bright future
Opportunities for her
For the children
Far beyond
This gray life
But she had seen others
Hustled off
Used up
And dropped down
Where they began
The promise ashes
The good life gone
He was a student
Reading and learning
He, unique
Not like the rest
Whose only shot
Was the rattle
Of the rim
And she would
Take no less
Than the life change
That came
With an education
She asked tough questions
Questions that eliminated
Sports factories
Questions that
Would involve
More personal hardship
But assure the future
Of her eldest child
Her sacrifice
So few
Were willing to make
She heard their offer
Then sent so many
On their way
Scouts find talent
Make promises
Get a paper signed
Then move on
To the next prospect
She wanted more
Poor but proud
A good mother
In the whirlwind
Of big time sports

Summer 1957 – A Poem by Roy Pullam

Barker Hill
Had a thunderstorm
Dynamite jarring the ground
Knocking the bottom
From Uncle Ed’s well
Turning the mortar
In his chimney
Into dust
The roar of the big trucks
Night and day
Hauling locally
To Hart’s tipple
It was his home
His refuge
From the people
At the base
Of the hill
But they had brought hell
In the form of explosives
Robbing him of sleep
Wrecking his property
Turning the land
behind him
Into a pit
Poisoning the water
With iron pyrite
A legal strangulation
That would eventually
Force him to sell
To abandon his Eden
Without a look back

Lockout – A Poem by J.K. Durick

The blinds are closed, the doors locked, blocked,
lights are out, they huddle in the corner, for once
literally hiding in the classroom, they talk quietly,

get their phones out, text their parents, their friends,
each other, post to Facebook; there’s nothing new
about it, they’ve planned for it, practiced this, but

this time it could be serious – this is not a drill.
From across the street, from his angle, TV news
gets it all, the deserted feel of it, a few police cars

around, some movement now and again; it’s spring,
it’s quiet where there should be voices and noise,
a few sneaking around the way students their age do,

but now it’s silent, like Rachel Carson’s silent spring,
pesticide poisons our place, our air with this, we have
taught them to hide and wait quietly for the all clear bell,

the end of school and what they learned about today.

Advertisement | Neil Creighton

For sale,
Planet Earth,
The Solar System,
Orion Arm,
The Milky Way.

This planet,
filled with abundant life
and suggestion of spirit-force,
is slightly used
but has great potential.

Prospective buyers will notice
some wear at the Poles,
difficulty with the air-conditioning,
considerable habitat loss,
coral bleaching,
and species extinction
due to short-term thinking
from the dominant species.

Repairable with care and planning,
the site retains much natural beauty.
In particular, the dome
remains largely untouched,
ethereal blue by day,
stained-glass beauty
morning and evening,
diamond-studded velvet quilt at night.
Other features include
snow capped mountains,
vast oceans that crash on cliffs
or curl and slap on sand,
rivers that rush, fall, roar, meander,
and a dazzling array of vegetation
too varied to list.

But hurry.
A myopic beast called “Corporation”,
caring little for plunder and greatly for profit,
is intent on consuming everything in the yard.

All responsible buyers are welcome.
Please organise inter-galactic
visiting rights before inspection.

Something So Simple | JD DeHart

To think of something
so simple
as a basic sense of humanity
denied on the basis
of assumption or commerce.
It’s a strange history
that still seems to be our
present tension.
I used to think how far
we’ve come, but now
I only hope we can go
farther still.

What Grows in Our Meta-Greenhouse | Amanda N. Butler

Did you know that
–dandelions grow through lava, laughing
in tongues of wildflower flame?
–crabgrass grows through melted ice,
sprouting in waves of crustacean corpses
and spouting skyscrapers?
–pipes grow through bones?
More information is included in your handout
along with your complementary gas mask
that can be personalized right from your phone
courtesy of our sponsor –

More at http://arsamandica.wordpress.com/.

The Dogs Slip out Again | Tricia Knoll

That black and white TV, police dogs,
night sticks, and fire hoses. 1963.
Birmingham scared this child viewer.

Now with the remote in my hand,
in full-color black dogs pull
on leashes held by corporate security.

Up the chain of command someone cried
havoc at the oil fields. Let loose
corporate dogs to draw blood

for black oil money. Scare
the people with treaty rights.
Tell them oil drives, not ancient bones,

nor sacred waters, nor wind prayers.
Only rights of passage
of petroleum.

Handlers ignore the bones
dogs might understand.
People stand up, hope

never to be bitten again.

More at http://triciaknoll.com.

Labor History | Roy Pullam

It is more than a job
His son’s shoes
The roof over his family’s head
The food in their stomachs
The future
Now all uncertainty
Added to the cold
On the picket line
A sign
Proclaiming the unfairness
The slow walk
In front
Of the gate
The only warmth
The wood fire
In a fifty gallon barrel
The inequality of power
A Fortune Five Hundred corporation
Committed to break the union
Strikebreakers ready
To snatch a job
To work for less
Police their loyalty
To property over principle
But he will wait
Sacrificing with the hope
Of security
It is the story
Of labor
The patience
The long suffering
With the hope
His march
Around the walls
Of capital
Will bring the walls down

I Had a Nightmare Last Night | Gil Hoy

I had a nightmare last night,
A nightmare deeply rooted
in an American nightmare.

Where churches and schools,
theaters and city streets
were dying.

Where military weapons
were firing into unsuspecting
innocent crowds

Tentwentythirtyfortyfifty
pigeons intheblinkofaneye.

I awoke in a terrified sweat
as bleeding children wailed
and cried and screamed.

While those to protect us tasked
slept soundly in their beds.

A nightmare deeply rooted
in an American nightmare,

I had a nightmare last night.

Blue | Anna Kander

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!

Blue-chip companies take their name from the color of the highest-valued chips at poker tables on October 28, 1929.

(we’re reliable, all-American, safe)

Then comes October 29, 1929: the day the stock markets crash.

Then comes October 30, 2009: me, new to a minimum-wage custodial crew, learning that the most important thing, when you clean the headquarters of a multibillion-dollar corporation, is the executive washroom.

The questions are not: Are floors swept? Are counters and toilets clean?

The real questions are: Is the trash empty, even if there were only three paper towels in the bin?

(they don’t want to see trash)

Did you wipe away any fingerprints left when you opened the shiny chrome stall doors?

(they want you to be invisible)

And, is the water in the toilet bowl a reassuring, disinfectant-blue?

No? We’ve no time. They don’t pay us enough to stay any longer. Night janitors got to hustle to the next job.

Just spritz some blue in there, let’s go.

(they don’t want to see)

(they’ll never know)

More at http://annakander.com.

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