NOTE: This poem was first written earlier today in the Facebook group Poets All Call, managed by Socorro Olsen. Group member Bob Kabchef, a car-loving friend of mine, posted title suggestions for the group earlier in the week. I used his title “Fossil Fools” but took it lowercase, as is my habit. Grateful thanks go to Socorro and Bob, without whom this poem, and MANY others of my best, would never have been written.
Have a good Earth Day, Friends. Be as kind to the environment as you can, please.
“wise men say”
sang the king
“only fools rush in”
but
what about the oklahoma land rush?
what about the california and then yukon gold rush?
and what of standard oil?
getting in on the ground floor involves rushing
many processes are best breakneck-sped
opportunity knocks AND THEN GOES AWAY
and fortunes are made
rumrunners
gunrunners
numbers runners
runners to your marks
speaking of marx
he wrote DAS KAPITAL
and changed die Welt
and decades later
MAD magazine publisher william m. gaines
took some of his crew to russia
as an incentive vacation
and people followed him reverently
because he looked exactly like karl marx
i don’t digress
his dad max gaines made a pile
being in on the ground floor of comic strips
and then comic books
and he
and john d. rockefeller
and henry ford and edsel ford and henry ii
and olds and pierce-arrow and hispano-suiza
and many others (cough*studebaker*cough)
co-created capitalism’s answer
to those godless commies
and behold we did consume
we did demand we did sign up
we did see the u s a in our chevrolets
and we spread the word about burma shave
and fossil foolishness spread its fog machine
far wide and deep
and corporations became predatory
and fed on the bottom line
and now we want…sustainability?
listen to the c-e-o-ish laughter
sustain this you m—–f—–s they sneeringly reply
and behold we do sustain them
we pay their bloodmoney bonuses
and we lonely few
taking hours on public transport to get across town
weep
One with Clay, Image and Text 