Toxic Pond Poem by Renee Marie

For Christ's sake, please
don’t tell me about our polluted planet again!
I need to hear the train whistle,
church bell chorus, noon-time town siren,
and flip these veggieburgers.
Please don't ask me to watch the news:
Torn oil tankers, war's bloody wastelands,
Katrina's millions of home improvement
project liquids leaking into every pore of Mother Earth. Now,
my bubbling bio-pond,
soothing organic garden plot,
Vermont barbecue moment
screams back at me:
'Radical simplicity is not just
another tofu-eating, grass skirt-wearing
wind energy-buying, neo-feminist,
metro-sexual fucking
bumper sticker!
Walk-the-talk, poet, or fall
into a dirty, toxic sleep
where even dreams are acid rain
on butterfly’s wings, and dandelion wishes
are blown-up in smoke-worlds.'
I turn glassy-eyed, in slow motion, away from this familiar
inner monologue only long enough to ask in monotone:
'Would you pass the pickles, please? '