Endangered Species
It bore investigation, the gods all seemed to think
to see what’s happening on Earth that’s raising such a stink.
The clouds of poisonous vapors seemed to obscure their view
so they had to come much closer to see what they could do.
Here everyone seemed eager to screw the other guy,
sure that complete happiness was something they could buy.
They’d have to think of something to divert them from their wrath,
to deflect them from their lust for fortune to another path.
What if they gave them something to redirect their thought
from this mania for wanting what the other fella’s got?
They created Martin Cooper and made two guys named Steve,
gave them creativity and something up their sleeve
to invent these gadgets to connect us all together
so we could help each other in times of stormy weather.
But the plans of men and deities often go astray.
Even gods in heaven do not always know the way.
How could they know that iPads and tiny little phones,
the Internet and Facebook would turn us into drones
staring at our open hands or clicking selfie shots,
intent more on ourselves than in helping the have-nots?
While skulking in the background, cronies of corporation
plotted most unnoticed in corrupt cooperation
to keep the masses busy with their puzzles and their games,
their TV and their movies and their lists of contact names.
We all would be so busy staring at our palms
that no one would be worried. No one would suffer qualms
about what was happening—the greed and the pollution.
Our leaders all the problem and never the solution.
We sold our world for cyber toys, believed their staged reality.
Traded in our real world for scheduled banality.
Kardashians and Candy Crush, sitcoms and solitaire,
Twitter, selfies, Instagram—a virtual nightmare.
Have we really botched it? Will no one come to aid?
Will our species all die out? Sicken, fall and fade?
They say after Chernobyl the animals returned.
The grass and tees grew back where they formerly were burned.
Only humans can’t abide the mess that they have made.
as though they have created their own end by their charade.
It’s the way of evolution. Species come and species go
Those who do not worry as they vanish tell us so.
The thing that they don’t realize, just waiting round the bend
as species after species is herded toward its end,
of all endangered species, another they have hexed
may be homo sapiens, whose extinction may be next.
The prompts were below, investigation and eager. The links are below:
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/08/fowc-with-fandango-below/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/investigation/
