Metastasis
One day within our thirties bungalows
tiny radios transformed to giant tubes
that color-flooded modest living rooms.
But later those constricted cells
expanded into spacious chambers
rivaling Jahan’s Taj Mahal.
And next the small garages housing humble Fords
burst forth with triple stalls and barn-like doors,
birthed SUVs that rivaled army tanks
and roared folk forth to sports events,
bleachers changed to bulging concrete bowls.
And then aggrandizement grew epidemic:
All movie houses soon became gigantic castles
with twenty screens, serving fine cuisine
from what were once mere popcorn stands.
Amusement parks transformed to plastic cities;
roads became wide torrents of macadam;
and overhead, engorged with flesh, gigantic planes
with wings as long as flights the Wrights could claim
made oceans, coasts and poles contiguous.
So then ten-cent goods once sold in corner stores
were next displayed on billboards overseas,
and callow boys who’d learned to plunk three chords
played to throngs around the world,
their former twangs and bleats a universal howl;
and hucksters working once from gypsy carts
became moguls in towers of glass,
peddling useless stuff in strange domains,
controlling faceless factories far too great
to suffer government restraint,
too huge to be denied the right to sell
their guns, their smokes, their films, their latest pills.
And like an ugly fungus Hell had nursed to life,
we spread across the shriveled earth.
Last week the moon discovered its first pustule —
and nearest planets tremble.
(2004)
#CriticalFree