Polemical writing is interesting to those drawn to controversy. Human beings have been described as rational animals. Perhaps "opinionated" is closer to the truth. To write poetry from the heart, don't you have to express your opinions?

NO CHICKEN

bird flu and aids
how's a poor boy
going to eat
with no chicken?
make love when
his girl friend is
dying?

too much rich
too much poor
nobody knows how
anymore
how to live

too much rich
destroying our world
too much poor running
from destruction

crossing rivers
filling up back roads
running borders
jamming city streets

rich heating up oceans
steaming up our atmosphere
storming the southern hemisphere
genocide by hurricane
draught
tsunami

rich fabricating weapons
poor biting bullets

usa rich profiting
from bombs
making
selling
dropping

usa poor dying
no work
no health care
plenty jail

too much crime to trust
anymore
too much street war to
love anymore

blank government cheques
for killing
nothing much to spend
for healing or to teach

too much israel
too much washington dc

asymmetric warfare
rummy calls it:
mass murder by the rich
suicide bombing by the poor
torture at guantanamo
hunger strike
hang yourself

says bush and the gang:
geneva conventions
do not apply
to asymmetric warfare

somos todos
commandante
marcos

we are all
al queda
who
can't see anymore future
for our girls and boys

too much religion
preaching hate
too much government
spreading fear

white collar stealing
gone insane
jacking, dealing
same old games

here we come around the
corner with our loot
can't eat these tv's but
we can sell'em
ain't that the truth?

get me some cash while
the ice caps melt
the seas rise up
disease in the streams
poison in the air

middle class folks
trying to climb up
out of the mess

trying to keep
from falling down here

where we're running
from too much bullets
too much tanks
too much rock
too much smack
too much laundry
in the banks

while the ice melts
the seas rise up
girls and boys dying
from guns and aids

and now they're saying
not even any damn chicken
anymore.


Don Brennan