Now that we take off the heads of mountains in one swift flash
and cause our very own subterranean earthquakes why should
we bother with speed limits or even think about miles per gallon.
We’ll just call clear cutting forest fire prevention and pass the
pollution from the red conservative states to the liberal blues.
We’ve been playing with fire for a million years and you know
compassionate conservativism says we will have to continue.

Except there are those pesky hot mamas waiting in the steaming
subway tube and as you look into the faces of their toddlers, well,
for me at least it’s hard to agree with that old Malthusian theory.
There’s always one more step to be taken and Eve somehow ushers
another soul to that curvaceous common table where we all find a famous
foothold and raising our cups together we toast the generation gone before.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.