Gary Beck

Jane Doe works at home,
consumer research,
uses the computer
for virtually everything.
Pays rent on-line,
talks to friends on-line,
orders meals on-line,
has sex on-line.
Jane Doe’s life
is the future,
unless we lose
our power supply.

The works of man, o builders,
are smothering our planet,
suffocating the surface
with endless coats of concrete,
denying respiration,
yet expecting survival.
Toxins pollute the land,
poison the air,
sterilize the seas.
Those who care,
hoping our children
will have a future,
bravely raise their voices,
but are thoroughly stifled
by the confusing clamor
broadcasted daily
by the servants of profit
to distract us from tomorrows.

Hundreds of child soldiers
in eastern Congo’s war
recently returned home,
often to the village
where they killed and pillaged.
Some were forced to leave
by threats of vengeance.
Others were ostracized
by their own families.
Some who were welcomed home
beat their heads against the wall
until they were tranquilized.
Others remained mute for days,
eyes darting back and forth
like frightened animals.
These children were kidnapped,
used by the rebels
as fighters, laborers
often as sex slaves,
manipulated victims,
now only fit for war,
or mental institutions.

Abandoned in the desert
I dream rescues,
while smiting the sand
strips the shimmering flesh
from my rejected bones.
Where is the guide?
Wagon master of the soul’s journey
fording rivers,
repelling ambushes,
then leaving me behind,
a companion to the voyage
who turned the wheel
harder than anyone,
but questioned the road.

What is the hunger of water-falls
for little men in tiny boats,
flirting with alluring whirlpools,
who lie on crowded Sunday beaches
dreaming of vacations in the winter,
burdened by cameras that seek
Palm Beach condos,
Fort Lauderdale motels,
Miami hotels.
The tourists sleep late, swim,
drive on across an aging land,
veined with highways of destruction,
submerged with cities of corrosion,
skeletoned by crumbling towns and farms,
and always arteries of roads, roads, roads,
coursing its people like blood
through a diseased body,
until one day
the price of oil
ends our way.

“This Good Life” is from Gary Beck’s new poetry book “Days of Destruction.”
To order a copy of Gary’s book please click here.