Fruit Of Their Labours Poem by Chris G. Vaillancourt

In tribute, we live like parasites
on thrown away bread, digesting

our indifference to one another.

Summer or winter, neither season
interferes with our decayed morals.
We like extremes, for that is the
pattern we've been taught
to believe.

Water drips from the tap, it
resembles rusted cars in
a forgotten outdoor theatre.

Bodies splayed in no particular order.

Used up, discarded. Rejected
pieces of mud left like animal
droppings in a bag on a porch.

In our delusionary state, we indicate
our lack of concern for anything
that does not have commercials.

We exist to purchase everything
we've been told we need.

The right soft drink, the correct
pair of jeans.

Flashing sound-bytes, our
statement to the world. We call
out our rage in symbols of
self-indulgence.

Polluted river flowing with the
sludge of our commercialism.
Drinking from it we dare
to embrace
the toxic waste of our
lost idealism.

Step over the man on the street,
kick aside the woman with
the shopping cart full
of her illusions.

They are not problems until
they commit a crime. Statistics
that are put on paper
and than used to line
the bottom of our birdcage
point of view.

We struggle with nothing, not
wanting to get our hands dirty.

Dying, we become fertilizer
in the ground. Remembered only
when there is money
left to share.

How proud our ancestors
must be of the fruit of
their labours.