Sunday, February 27, 2011

Just One More Filthy Pond

A filthy pond, exposed to the merciless sun with weeds and stickers surrounding it
Litter and household castoffs line its entire shore and fill its slimy green water
Too close to the smog-belching, constantly-roaring traffic jam called a freeway
Too easy for those criminal disposal trucks to visit late at night

A sad little pond, but well-suited to hold many empty beer cans
Sometimes a pair of dirty dish water ducks somehow still bob upon it
Too small and unimportant for us passing daily by, upon our hurried ways
Nonetheless, a good place for lost youth to go and get really blown away

Algae-filled home to a couple of mutant and air-gulping carp
Washed into by every manner of foul runoff with each and every dirty rain
Not even on our social radar given our much more pressing economic issues
As easily overlooked as the homeless misfits we gingerly step over every day

It’s care falls permanently between the cracks, just like the multi-generational poor
A lost shopping cart leans green and now only half-submerged, close onto the shore
A deformed frog with a disfiguring skin disease croaks in vain for a mate
This festering leper holding up a tiny dirty mirror to our progressive and bustling city

Not even in a bad part of town, but, nonetheless, entirely without a social safety net
Protected by a falling down fence, Poison Warnings, No Fishing and No Swimming signs
That is, not suitable for our kids or puppies, but yet, not worthwhile enough to be cared for
A filthy pond that exposes a small flaw in this whole living outside of nature campaign of ours

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