My Dark Poem Poem by David Saltaire

This is a dark poem
not dark with ghosts and blood spatters
not dark with a grinning killer
my poem is not a bloody
amusement park fantasy
of suicides and gamboling corpses
my dark poem is about you.

As you were eating your fecal hamburger today
stacked corpses were being used to block roads.
As you were bloating your belly with
carbonated corn syrup
and feeling mildly depressed
the highest court in the land sold you
to Walmart and Monsanto.

My poem is about something dark
that happened today.
Laboring children got their fingers caught in machinery
others picked through garbage.
still other children were sold into slavery
to make shoes and shirts
While you stood in line at the unemployment office.

On TV, or somewhere, some politician said
you shouldn’t feed or clothe the poor
because that just encourages them
to breed,
and giving children a hot lunch
just lowers their test scores.
From beyond the fires Hitler's eyes sparkled
and he actually laughed.