Black smoke rises
In a February field
Looms on the horizon
Like it’s Bethlehem steel

The Senate holds a hearing,
they’re not hearing your appeal

But Alan Shaw is counting thralls
and oozing class appeal

He says “don’t pick your blisters,
it’s just best to let ‘em peel”
as he has his culpability repealed

I Felt the lightning,
Waited on the thunder,
Never heard the peal

Turns out it was buried under
Fog that’s dense enough to FEEL

Fog that lowers down
Like Alan’s crown
When he secretes his shpeel
& Donates City Council each a couple thou
to stop their squeals

I’m for having Mr. Shaw
divided like the seven seals

Scattered round the globe
Painstakingly concealed

He and every other walking clot of greed, congealed,

and the corporate machinery
Of which, he’s but a wheel

Strip it down to parts
and keep it safely under heel

Otherwise, we’ll never heal.

Otherwise we forfeit every blossom

For its toxins will not yield.

Otherwise, we’re helpless, watching,
all we’ll hear is muffled sobbing
overlaid across the gentle whir of the projector reel

Were I any saner by their standards
I’d be glad to hang the banners,
as it stands, I spurn the flag
and shun the standard,
I defiantly reject the real.

I reject the will of Federal terrorists
who throw the word ‘Democracy’ around
like it’s the holiest protector’s shield

standing quietly while we allow society
to wrap itself in piety,
when half cannot afford a meal

We are minnows wielding class-action lawsuits
searching for some justice in the court of eels

Heard the portcullis lock
heard the jury lick its chops
Heard the suit was dropped.
Heard the minnows reached a deal.

They’re Happy Ever After
In a February Field

details of the settlement
were not revealed.

Now, if you ask Alan Shaw,
that’s a comeback story
Where he rises from the ashes
in the afterbirth of corporate glory

One in which the residents of Palestine
who leave
are coming back to see
the rainbow sheen
that sits atop the creek
disguises something gory

Dead fish in the riverbed,
like boulders in a quarry
Dead deer in the forest glen
but they are far from Norfolk’s quarry

We are what they’re seeking to reduce,
all too eager to reuse,
and then recycle once we’re forty

We supply a labor force
that law forbids aborting

That’s if all should go according

If you hold a politician’s hand,
It’s fascism you’re courting

And that’s the fight that gets me out of bed
to keep recording

That’s the fight that opens up my eyes
every morning.

To Chloride on the sunrise,
& CNN reporting
that it’s safe to drink the water
if you don’t know what’s been forming

That it’s best to trust the experts,
who ignore the blatant warnings

Disregard the evidence you’re currently absorbing

Norfolk’s awfully sorry,
and their profit’s fucking SOARING

It is silent in a field
On a February morning

And that’s where we begin our story