The Lamplighter Snuffs Out a Star

When business & government attack, what happens elsewhere?

Photo by Yusuf Evli on Unsplash

Derelict planets are the dead towns
of the cosmos
rundown & out of shape.
Imagine when the anvil hand
of big business kills enough
small traders reduces communities
to rubble & despair — somewhere
a celestial lamplighter snuffs
out another star.
Mirrors are everywhere.
Isn’t it true each part contains the whole
as above so below?

So far it’s just been minor asteroids
with obscure names
but I hear Venus is under threat
& Jupiter’s expansive qualities
may be forever put away.
Why not take out Uranus instead
diminish shocks — all the ill-conceived —
in fact never considered —
tragedies of our age.

We might erase sleepy Saturn
which could kill off unelected
partnerships of governments
& corporations — by extension
all the greedy fellows who simply
sold their souls for the promise of riches.
We don’t need people who so easily turn killer.
Once they were friends & neighbours.
Let all us ‘useless eaters’ join hands
across the galaxy just like the French.

Youth might come to life again
stop hassling old women out shopping
or huddling to smoke weed on ill-lit corners.
Denuded businesses might flower
husband & wife grow kinder to one another.
Hospitals could return to legitimate diseases
quit following rich men’s agendas.
Comradeship — care of one’s fellow
might return — the heart itself restored
until only the heavenly lamplighter
is redundant & ready to return.

Swimming in the Hospital’s Ocean

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