DESPITE ALL APPEARANCES

I want to feel complete once in awhile.
enter a place where all is calm
everything is as it should be
& there is nowhere I want to go
no one I want to see

the happiest man
never has an urge to leave home
a bastardization of a buddhist phrase
stayed in my mind
as so many others were washed away
by cascading floods of words in newspapers and books and magazines and cereal boxes...

culture your garden
ignore the burning fields around you
there is no putting out some flames
the globe will burn here and there
smoke a little forgetfullness
play a computer game
try to think of something else while rome burns

save your tears for the climax
the day of surrender
when the animals and plants
are sacrificed
over something like the cost of oxygen

save your tears for the day when the blue sky
breaks momentarily through the brown and yellow smog
for the last time

save your tears for the end days
when the last voice of denial is struck dumb
and the mindless force of our doom
hails down a thoughtless wrath