To be a caged animal
and illicit stares
of shared despair
while trying to
clear the air here
of that ***** stench.

The populace passes
by my caged display
as I try to play
pretending that my pain
is not so real.

I dress myself up
in nice new things
watching how
the other animals swing.

Reality shows,
sports events,
and other
things
obfuscate
how human beings
isolate themselves.

My cage expands
to fit all my pretty things,
while my mind shrinks
and stinks of sinking fools
who are also drowning
in their own stool.

Voices in my head influenced by society,
telling me I need stuff in variety.
Materialism slowly suffocating me,
minimalism too hard to achieve for free.

Things, can't make you happy.
I fear,
I want a start a life.
But am I not living one already?
So I am I really just asking for a Thing,
In hope of happiness?

Even if I know the difference,
Can I live it?

O Babylon! Your God is a sport-utility vehicle, a VCR, and a two-car garage!
You delight in images of killing and artificially-large-breasted women!
Your arteries are clogged with Big Macs and a thousand pieces of Kentucky-Fried Chicken!
Your God is Technology.  Your God is Progress.

Your skyscrapers rise to the heavens!  Your astronauts fly to the moon!
You clone sheep! alter genes! make a mountain into a parking lot!
Your fields flower!  Your grain-bins groan under the weight of the ripe corn!
But the land of your soul is a desolation.

O God of Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers, and Bill Gates,...
All the nations adore Thee!
(Pretty soon they'll be ordering Papa John pizza by cell phone in New Guinea....)
Your God is Mammon.

After the movies, after the Quarter-pounders-with-cheese, super-size fries, and a large Coke,
after the evening news, the Hostess cupcakes, golf, beers, and swimming 20 laps,
the hunger will be the same as the day you first felt it, O Babylon!
the thirst of the soul, O Babylon!

you have stones and rocks to play with
clothes hanging from a tree
a *** of rice to portion
and you barely think of me

i have popcorn in my pantry
coffee ready to brew
clothes with all their tags on
and yet i'm envious of you

We were lovers before we were friends.
You wanted to build a nest in my tree
before bothering to climb it
or learning me
to see whether or not my branches
could hold your home
filled with things upon things.
You wanted big things
nice things
shiny and expensive things.
You didn't want to decorate me,
you wanted to use me like a coat rack
to hold your winter coat
over summer.
You never asked if I liked things.
You assumed
that there are things I like
and things that I don't like
but it isn't things that I want -
it's people
and feelings
and moments.
It's everything that can't be bought
that brings me joy.
But you,
you were so sure
that if you filled my mouth with
money
it would mute the sound of my discontent.
But it only made me creak louder.
And when you tried to keep my hands busy
with the job of holding the things
you bought for me,
you thought
it would stop me from
pushing you away
when you whispered at night
that you loved me,
and now it was my turn to say thank you
by doing things
written in fine print
at the bottom of your receipts.
But you can't pay me to stand tall,
to hold your things high off the ground
when the flood waters rise.
You can't place your coins in a slot
to make a tree bend to your wind
or let you tether off your boat
to weather a storm beneath her limbs.
You slipped me so many tips,
but I don't have a price.
We were lovers before we were friends,
and we were strangers long
before we said goodbye.