Tag Archives: toxicity

RETAINING PONDS

Carshalton Upper Pond by N Chadwick is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

The rich are the retaining wells of culture they believe.

They wear their wealth and status on their sleeves

or on their pockets front or back, across their chest,

or from their shoulder purses hanging slack.

Declaring status for all to see.

If there were no caste system there would be

no racism.

If there were no racism there would be

no climate change nor earth destruction.

For where would we put the poison men create?

Not near the wealthy classes’s gate.

They neither see nor suffer unsafe states.

Where do we bury their wealth-earned waste?

Not in Esher. Nor in St. Germain-des-Pres.

Not in Tribeca. Nor in Oud Zuid.

Not in Medina. Nor in Atherton.

Not in Port Royal. Nor in Kensington.

Not in Assiniboine Park. Nor in Port Royal.

Not in Patterson Hill. Nor in The Peak.

Not in any of the places only the rich speak

with cultured voice and true concern

for what the world has now become 

with each season’s unusual turn.

These richest places to live on this earth

are retaining ponds which only confuse

the deadline for earth’s destruction  

which we all face.

And those who have been cast aside.

who carry bottles governments provide,

or heavy jugs of polluted water

about the countryside,

from deadened rivers

and from polluted, toxic wells

live where the poorest live, unwelcome 

to live among the swells.

They live where the poorest dwell,

said to be the lower class,

and are placed among the lowest caste,

selected by race, color or birthplace.

we have no time to waste.

The retaining ponds must survive

to protect and pursue untainted water and skies,

to use their wealth to break down barriers,

to deconstruct the racist muck

they have placed us all in.

Clean air and water should be there for all.

If not, even the mighty and wealthy will fall

as earth reclaims what once was hers

an untainted world free of all humanity

and it poisonous thoughts and actions.

No racism, no caste sytem.

This I long to see. 

If only earth can survive you and me.

Retaining wells we all be.

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