The Environmental Love Song of Luc MELLES CARLIN With help from J. ALRED PRUFROCK
Location
Let us go then, you and I,
When the dawn is spread out across the sky.
On certain half deserted, late night flights,
The muttering plights,
Of restless, sterile nights
In a desolate age of consumers.
To meetings that follow tedious arguments
Of contractual intent
That lead us to another and another
Underwhelming question
Or two.
On the speaker-phone the voices come and go
With never a mention of where the water will flow.
And indeed there will be time
For deadlines and timelines and project design lines.
There will be time, too much time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
To present, to pretend, to extend
A hundred visions and revisions
To a hundred indecisions.
Wasting away her life-line provisions.
On the speaker-phone the voices come and go
With never a mention of where the water will flow.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair
And ponder, should I be fair?
Should my jeans be tight or loose?
What are Uggs and who is Juicy Juice?
And are we using a generation’s excuse to consume?
Son, hurry! Fill the cart up, it’s the baby boom!
And will governments make room to improve?
Do I dare
Disturb the admin to the assistant’s,
assistant to the universe, at all?
And if I do, will he or she
Realize overshoot day, isn’t for the long haul.
Rather, declaring an annual curtain call
But when dealt the final consequences
We complain to America’s pastime, like what’s with this curveball?
2.
For I have known them, known them all
My day job’s days
Mornings and afternoons inert
I have measured out my life with shovelfuls of dirt.
And I have known the eyes already, all young
The eyes that fix you in a formulated pitch
A single, high concept, through line,
Active characters and a third act switch
And when I am pinned to the couch and hung
How should I have begun
To spit out the butt-ends of my stories addiction.
How could I presume,
And why did I digress,
And a hundred other questions
About my lungs lack of healthy success.
Are tempting, easy vices.
Do I have the strength
To force the moment to it’s crisis.
But though I rage and scheme
And ring my hands in anguish.
Does it really matter?
Am I sustainable , can I command a room
Are Americans really getting fatter?
I have seen the moment of my contradictions flicker
And sometimes on the speaker-phone, I hear the Chinese boy snicker
And in short, I am afraid.
To undergo guilt for a single iPhone paid.
3.
And have I really tried?
Have I tried hard enough
To squeeze the universe into a ball
Or have I simply said,
“That is not what I meant,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
I beg the favor of Attendant Lords’ attendants.
Deferential? Glad to be of use? An easy tool?
Yes, yes and yes
In short, the fool.
I grow old… I grow old…
Should my designer shirt be rumpled or have a fold
Is maximum consumerism, congruent to fools gold?
Should I wear sunglasses on top of my head?
Are they the right shape, out of date?
Am I dead.
I will linger in the chambers of mother earth
With my lover and myself, we ask for a second rebirth
My friends and my home town falls into satirical mirth
Where human voices wake me, before I drown
Mother earth can only have one, a virgin birth is only allowed
Restrictions and Regulations, Societal policy’s
The chains of mankind, making us perishable commodities