I've Got Another Useless Meeting

I've got a meeting now so I can find out what they think the vendor said

so I will catch you later once we get the knife planted firmly in your backs

I'm headed to a meeting to get us all on the same page once again

I am a great communicating, over-complicating, facilitating whore

I'm all booked up with meetings now, so regretfully I can no longer do any real work

I report upon my meetings and we all stake out our positions going forward

I just came from a meeting and we must leap as if to some real action

your asses are all hanging out but I have heroically bought us a little time

I cannot let you go forward until after next week’s meeting

they want to get a consultant's take before they’ll be ready to commit

I called another meeting to re-review that which I will never understand

I must get my boss' sign-off or she could have my ass

I'm scheduling a meeting now because that is what I do so I can look as if I'm useful

I will adopt another's perspective but I can assure you that I remain on your side

I'm blocking out some time to meet about another topic about which I have no clue

So you must tell me what to tell my boss to tell the field to tell the customers

I'm late for my next meeting so I don't have time to discuss this issue

But I will ask around enough behind your back to parrot back some nonsense

I've got a ten o'clock right now that I can use to evade your probing questions

let's touch base again when I've had a chance to cover up my ass

I've got another overview review meeting, we still cannot get our story straight

once engineering dumbs it down enough, we can all get on the message

I'm off to a meeting, they all take precedence over what is on your mind

I will bring back your action items and our thoughts on moving forward

I'm preparing for this meeting, I must give a presentation

I am being stuffed with buzzwords which I can usually spell but not explain

I'm chairing a committee that will hold a set of meetings

the participants either already know the outcome or will never have a clue

I'm setting up a meeting between us and your offshore replacements

you will need to provide them training or you will get no severance

I'm sitting through another meeting, fighting to appear to be awake

I like to say I wish I still had time to get face-down in some real task

I'm going to present the results of another meeting to some department heads

they will distort this down to their direct reports and we will call it work

I'm lining up all the important players for a real brainstorming session

We’ll craft a co-operative solution that won’t satisfy any one of us, especially you

I’ve got a meeting right now but I will get back to you on this real soon

I’ll fill you in on the takeaway along with what they left upon your plates

Our Progress Did All This To You

When you see brutal machinery gouging up the gentle land you once knew

We did this without so much as a passing thought about you

When your ears hurt from the noise and your nose burns from the stench

We drove casually by and did this to you without the slightest pretense

When the rain does not fall and the sun is too hot and it feels too crowded

We did this and We needed no help to get it all started

When the water is dirty and grows ever scarcer

We did this with kindness and you need not fear, sir

When you cast out any others at all different from you

We did this and they, our cloned brothers, were not just a few

When you soil your nests and move on without a care

We did our duty and squatted in relief before you ever got there

When you stole from your children the life from the land

We did them a favor and steadied your greedy hand

When all you can think of is escape to mass media hypnosis

We did this for you with love that you might learn via osmosis

When you sit alone behind your car's tinted windows, swallowing the smog

We did this that you all might be ground closer in their great gears and cogs

When your children learn nothing, take everything and return only scorn

We did my best to make them just like you since the day they were born

When you work for years just to be kicked away like sick old prostitutes

We did our part to import your cheap and disposable substitutes

When you used it once and flipped it away

We smiled at your bored children going off again to play

When you swilled fast food and dreamed of the days when you were slim

We laughed as you were driving your car to the gym

When you bought your new clothes for the thrill of their bright colors

We did this so that you would not notice that your life grew ever duller

When you financed new vehicles and drove around on your phone

We helped you to think that your life was your own

When you mortgaged your future to spend more today

We fooled you into thinking you’d never have to pay

When you babbled alone to your cellphone in a crowd

We reported this as well, although not quite as loud

When you always spent more and never kept anything aside

We did this so that you would have nothing to look back on with pride

When you bought all the dreams that conglomerates were pitching

We did this counting softly, laughing, not bitching

When you smoked and you drank and you ate your rich food

We wrote songs to sell you things by shaping your attitude

When you took pride in your ignorance of the ways of your brothers

We saw why you had appointed yourselves to lead all the others

When you tried to look back and make sense of your time

We did what We could to hide these empty things from your mind

When your eyes began to fail you and you could no longer touch your toes

We did this with you but you will remain very much alone

When you thought you had mastered this life and all of its fears

We smiled as you finally tried to look deeper than into a mirror

When you planned romantic adventures for your golden years

We saw someone’s life ending in embarrassment and irrational fears

When you envisioned a time in which you grew old with grace

We smell your stale bedpans in an inhuman place

When you at last sat alone and planned a death with true dignity

We see it in millions and chuckle at the absurdity

When you finally saw these few things that others let slip

We mumbled this sadly through your barely moving lips

As If We Had No Choice

As if we cannot kill the trees and rend the fields quite fast enough

          let us rain bombs down upon them and kill all the animals, too

As if some families do not find life hard enough already

          let us shoot their men and rape the women even as their children watch

As if the living was easy in some land of mythic plenty existing only in our minds

          let us take away the bread winners and leave their families in need

As if there were enough of everything and resources knew no limits

          let us build expensive killing machines which we will then simply destroy

As if the people's God were beyond any reproach

          let us show them by our acts how little He really cares

As if our collective morality were so powerful and clear

          let us ask them to kill without emotion and then go on home to their families

As if there were a purpose and meaning to our acts

          let the victors twist their wanton campaigns into a glorious history

As if the doctors and nurses had cured and healed all the sick here at home

          let us send them far away to mend those maimed in pointless slaughter

As if we could rationalize such things to ourselves

          let us frame an answer to the children who cry for their missing fathers

As if the best training consists of thoroughly brainwashing

          let us call brave those who bomb villages in safety from 30000' above

As if there could be a justification for our brutal actions

          let us hide truth from our people and disinform both enemy and ally alike

As if there were no hungry children roaming city streets

          let us grant fat military contracts instead of building schools

As if all of our men were far too healthy and strong

          let us send many home missing legs, hands or eyes

As if we were a peaceful people who could succor and would cure

          let veterans be turned out as drug addicts or violent alcoholics

As if our society already cares for all its lost and its downtrodden

          let us orphan their children and give their mothers a token flag

As if we had a surplus of food and no aged widows going hungry

          let us burn the fields and destroy the farms

As if the songbirds were not enough to fill the air

          let us drown them out with the awful shriek of artillery shells

As if the flowers did not add enough color to the valleys of our homeland

          let us dye them red from the shrapnel, the bullets and the bombs

 As if  we no longer had minds of our own

          let us all think as one the thoughts provided by our great leaders

As if every man, woman and child of our enemy were Satan in the flesh

          let us dehumanize them that we may rejoice in their terrible suffering

As if the air were far too clean and too clear

          let us fill it with the smoke and the ghastly stench of destruction

As if the bridges, roads and factories were cheap and easily replaced

          let us burn them and bomb them and build them once again

As if reality could be found in our repeated rationalizations

          let us rise again to reduce our lands once more to ashes

As if our boys weren't born with quite enough potential anger

          let us steep them in hatred and praise them for their violence

As if they needed any real reason or excuse to go off to the killing

          let the media extol the virtues of any and all of our wars

As if all of our leaders would go if they only could

          let us speak of the honor in dying of horrible wounds in far off lands

As if we had not used them callously in pursuit of our unspoken greedy aims

          let us thank them for their service but deny them their tiny disability pensions

As if they are only helping us to act in self defense

          let our greatest scientists create new implements of death and destruction

As if we believe that we would never use them

          let us hold biological and chemical weapons and many neutron bombs

As if our disputes had sprung from just and noble causes

          let us swell with righteousness and swear to kill them all

As if we were all part of some heavenly team

          let us rush forward as one, united by our common wish to see them all dead

As if the days allotted any of us were really none too short

          let us gamble with their young lives before they have learned enough to refuse

As if killing by remote control were the same as real bravery

          let us glorify the video games which guide our giant bombs

As if the animals were a party to our disputes here on earth

          let us burn their habitats that our enemies might have no place to hide

As if the needy had a voice in our war decisions

          let us praise them from a distance and put them closest to the bullets

As if we could find no real meaning in our families, homes and crafts

          let us extol that greater truth existing out there, in the killing fields

Fekin’ Tree Hugger

Them trees ain’t making too much goddamn noise in the middle of the night

Don’t see them throwing butts and cans and papers all over on the ground

Not burning any fossil fuels just for fun or even for shortsighted profits

Haven’t exported any factory jobs to Malaysia as far as I can make it out

They don’t push no phony, lying rationalizations about the agenda they pursue

Don’t see it as jobs and people versus some useless, sissy, squishy environment

You won’t see them rendering all the places where they grow unfit for other life forms

Have enough sense to shelter, shade and filter the water of the rivers and the streams

Will not hire pandering lobbyists and whoring lawyers to push their greedy, shortsighted agendas

Cannot fathom the acid that’s now in the rain for which they raise their limbs to gather

Ain’t dropping more ignorant and wasteful offspring with plastic Jesus’ blessing

Haven’t caused mass extinction or global warming in their survival struggles

Fekin’ trees are so damn quiet, maybe that’s why we just cain’t trust them

Don’t whine about discrimination when they get chainsawed and bulldozed

Humbly take in our CO2 wastes and give off the oxygen that we breathe

Don’t need no expensive pollution control equipment or intrusive federal regulation

Naturally thin themselves out when they get too thick to thrive

Never made up even one of them bullshit fantasies and called it a religion

Give it up to forest fires to enrich the soil and restart their grand succession

Ain’t a greedy developer among them who gladly trades sustaining habitat for dollars

Don’t have to make no spiritual search because grace is innately of their essence

Dignified without pretension even when slashed and burned and dragged away

Never filled with pride, anger, frustration or, intoxicating beverages

Won’t be caught dumping toxic wastes and then declaring bankruptcy

Ain’t never been accused of financing their survival struggle with unpaid credit cards

Don’t have to leave a place after a while because they have fouled it so badly

Won’t belittle our puny efforts or cast us as girlish, weak and liberal

Cannot invent and do not believe but are able to adapt slowly with a steady grace

Struggle hard to survive without any false sense of privilege or righteousness

Don’t have no phony souls to lose to superstition, hate or lust or war

Never get drunk and loud and have to wake up sick and guilty

Don’t waste more than they save or take more than they can give

Can’t even dump shit all over the ground and then just waltz on off

Don’t profit from the mooching songbirds who live off them without paying any rent

Haven’t heard them whining for subsidies while preaching about free trade

Probably be around yet another 65 million years, once we're gone again