HARBINGER
Just another day in hyper-capitalist society—
in my Facebook feed, news of rabbits and
chickens tortured on meat farms, but I’m still not
vegan and I’m waiting to die myself
from cancer I may have gotten from soil or ground water
contaminated by nuclear weapons, and no amount
of posting uplifting stories is going to fix that.
And lord, let them cease trying to control women’s
bodies, people’s genders, people’s desires,
let them stop hating people because of their color
and ethnicities. I want to shake the bigots and racists
till their teeth come loose and they lose their bite,
till their tongues swell up in their mouths
and they’re stricken mute. I want to save
all the slaughtered animals, save the seas and their
inhabitants—whales, birds, the tiniest bivalve—
from choking on plastic. I want to purify the air
of sulfur and carbon dioxide, scrape the lead
from plumbing pipes, god I need to do something
besides dying, besides thinking about death
and the neo-fascist politicians who lead
a nation of people unable to think critically
after 40 years’ systemic dismantling
of the education system by the rich
so their lackeys can make it
illegal to prosecute corporations for poisoning
the air, earth, water—and Jesus, isn’t it
a kind of mental illness
annihilating what you need to stay alive
for the accumulation of blind profit—
and in the process killing and killing and
murdering me, along with the people and animals
I can’t save but want to, with all my goddamn
fucking heart, but instead I’m waiting to die,
trying to find some last meaning in all of this.
A warning, perhaps. You’re next.
—Poets Respond
May 10, 2016
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Ilyse Kusnetz: “Every day in my Facebook feed I see news items and petitions about gross injustices—today it just happened to be a story about animal torture that sparked my outrage, which so quickly spirals to reacting to other sound bytes of horror in my feed and in emails that are sent to me because of petitions I’ve signed—and I want to make a difference, but at the same time I feel helpless, even more so knowing that my struggle with cancer has been taking all my energy. I have to hope that others will take up the battles that need to be fought, but at the same time the search for meaning in my own life has become more urgent. Sometimes all we can do is bear witness.” (website)
