content to squander the Earth’s vital riches,
   whole cities revel in wasteful decadence
   the people seem maddened by crazed consumption
   of hamburgers, milkshakes,
   and mass-media distortions
            elsewhere,
   millions live starving in vast human pigpens,
   kept weakened and ignorant about soap operas, game shows,
   or stock-market crashes,
   degenerate money-bashes,
   feudalistic orgies, wage-slave trading,
   fearful trysts of sheer speculation
   cleverly designed by greedy, profiteering individuals
   whose sum total vulgar existence equal
            a very, very gross national product

   nihilistic youth at Nazi-punk rituals
   pathetically worship narcissistic rock idols
   while the old morbidly sit and obscenely swallow
            commercialized corruption,
            complacently infatuated

   fat, fascistic, neo-Puritan preachers
   lay warped interpretations of Bible scriptures
   on their gullible, unquestioning, bigoted audiences,
   who, armed to the teeth with machine guns and crosses,
   are ready in self-righteous fervor to follow
   phony rhetoricians and actor politicians
            into the plutonic lake of fire

   once clear blue skies are now polluted
   with the chemical by-products of unscrupulous business
   where once prevailed lush fields and green forests
            now lie ground-smothering highways, garbage,
            and disposable diapers

   the sword of Damocles still preciously dangles
            in nuclear subs and missile silos

   swiftly spinning
            a world hurtles through space
   trembling, expectant,
            awaiting the blaze