When The Worm Stops Working Poem by Mark Heathcote

When the worm stops working
And your children starve to death,
Because there's nothing to harvest
Fill an old big Swan chest freezer.

What will you do, cry like the dew
Those factories are all closing shop
There's-not-another paying job
It's The Grapes of Wrath for you.

Life doesn't get easier; ask any vulture
Who's still picking on last year's bones?
It's his majesty, his kingdom
To find a home - any rest in a cyclone.

You can cry for the archangel Gabriel
To come down with his revelations
His proclamations vitriol
But it won't feed you or me.

When the worm stops working
And your children starve to death,
Because there's nothing to harvest
Fill an old big Swan chest freezer.

You can call to God and eat grass
And drown yourself drinking mead
But when these shifty systems crash
No one's going to care for hard-working graft.