PERFIDIOUS OIL
We subordinated
everything to
oil
and its principal product
— the automobile.
And then reality said no
And that’s the way it goes
Ω
Change we can
believe in
happens place to place
Simply building
Placing children first
Sometimes does the job
A promenade
Where no cars go
Helps some
Walking distance
Has a ring to it
Ω
Cars prove impossible.
Streets are for play.
People walk more.
Cities no sprawl.
Happy interaction
Healing rifts.
We could have
It all.
Ω
Multiplying cars
is the prospect
Better Detroit build
spaces for the future.
Ω
Values
Not size or composition
Make for the gatherings
We need
Let them be tolerant
Helpful democratic
Not too tightly bound
A space for each
Horrendous is bad values
Good ones are sublime.
There is no right size
Better flexibility
And spaces small
Enough to
give some room to all
Ω
What’s unreal
Is real estate
One way
Does not suit all
Ω
Welcome melange
Welcome shapes
Welcome composition
Welcome starlight
Past pollution
Welcome free creation
Ω
The basic unit of design
Should be own room.
They should be our
New new cars
Past out current doom
Ω
We all need our spaces.
They need not be big.
Monastic or places to play.
Not that hard to rig.
Ω
One’s own room
Small
A bedroom office.
Whole world
In a soundproof
Shell
Ω
Everyone should
live alone.
A part of every day.
Whether baby or
Or full grown
Not far from
common play
Ω
The key to privacy
Is sound
Not thickness of
a wall
Think graphene
and the sets of plays
That is the better call
Ω
Easily placed,
Easily moved,
Easily tied.
Ω
The best strength
Is flexibility
The best flexibility
Attachability
The best attachment
Duplicability
Ω
Used to make cars
Now I make spaces
The ratio of production
Is five to one
The ratio of profit is
The same
Ω
Leapfrog to a new world
It’s not hard
Now is now and then was then
Raise a new flag unfurled
What’s it read
Change again then change again
Ω
Make work is
What most work is
When it is work no more
The salaries for same are
Near obscene
Take work and
Then bury it
Then even up the score
Turn Basic Income into
The new scene
Ω
New Age
courses for
the rich elite.
Are just the sort of
education
we don’t need
Ω
take-out food is
cheap as
food from scratch
we can learn
to eat communally
by choice
family
is cool
then not so much
we can choose
the ways we want to be
and when
Ω
lego-blocks connect
so easily
that they like
rides in an amusement park
should be the way
we do everything
that warrants repetition
lego-blocks are best
seen flexibly
and not as
mime-mish repetitions
we already know
instead display the genius
of endless connectivity
Ω
This cools
This heats
Then put them away
Self-cookery a snap
Julia Child is
just down the street
if you want
gourmet on your lap
Ω
There might be
communal dining
like we do in restaurants
In a mile three hundred options
Meeting everybody’s wants
Ω
I am the captive
of stratified design
There’s no one here
to be diverse with
I think I need to move
Somewhere where there’ll
Be someone to rehearse with
Ω
Sean Hannity and
Reverend Wright
Two peas in a pod
One paid
to do no right
the other paid
by God
Both actors in a show
that led to a world stage
Where calm prevailed
and won the day
thanks to two
streams of rage
Ω
Nothing ever
trickled down to me
the prisoner said
I can’t find
no doctor
who will operate
I am a single parent
Think of that
I’d rather to be a
realtor
where money
can be made
than of sitting
in this jail
as sunlight fades
Ω
The goal of politics
is to alter
the trajectory of wealth
A nation where
everyone can win
Since trickle down
is seen as fantasy
Fairness
seems the best place
to begin
Ω
We have a warped idea
of freedom.
We believe freedom is
the right to give rich people
a garotte to use
with impunity
by virtue of an invisible cloak.
This invisible cloak
allows the Koch
aka the rich
to target victims
with such precision
that it almost equals
in efficiency
one of those wonderful
drone attacks
which are presumably
perfectly alright with
these freedom lovers
who avail themselves of
the Citizens United Strangling Machine.
All this is made possible
by a delightful organization
known as the Supreme Court
which also has the power to install anyone they like in the White House,
given the opportunity.