The Commodity Sings to its Beloved
I am here
for a very particular reason:
to buy a 6-pack of beer
and berries out of season
all for you, i did it all for you
I noticed an oil spill
on my drive past the bay,
emergency broadcast on the radio
—What do you have to say?
all for you, i did it all for you
You chopped down the plant
that used to grow my pants,
resurrected it in Indonesia
like a blow-up doll with amnesia
all for you, i did it all for you
Poor people once lived here
but you flooded the valley
with psilocybin carcinogens,
and forced the kids into shooting galleries
all for you, i did it all for you
You gave poor people jobs
then you forced them to act
like robots lining up
for a real live heart attack,
made them take apart their futures
then you sold the parts back,
repurposed the sutures
to close a robocaller’s rap
all for you, i did it all for you
You got children in slums
to make things that break,
your unspoken credo—
“If it lasts, it’s fake.”
But you were there first
when we were dying of thirst,
with a pint of chilled water
each, for me, my wife and two daughters,
and even a kewpie doll
and a tiny stuffed puppy
—for my wife some paper slippers,
for me, a stuffed yuppie
—You saw every decision
that I would make first,
and you did get there first
when we were dying of thirst
every decision
i make is part yours,
every step i take,
i take on your floor
You mangled my fingers,
polluted my streams,
screamed in my face,
closed deals over my dreams
all for you, i did it all for you
(and now it fades out,
“The Commodity Sings to its Beloved” song.
They’ll say it was a good idea
done wrong
—“They should have got a bigger budget,
done it as a singalong.”)
Copyright Credit: Julien Poirier, "The Commodity Sings To Its Beloved" from Out of Print. Copyright © 2016 by Julien Poirier. Reprinted by permission of City Lights Books.
Source: Out of Print (2016)