Banana peels and concrete pies
One day I decided to track down death.
Not just any death, mind you, but one specific one,
lingering cancer and birth defects and
screwed up disease resistance.
So, like a kid, I asked
Where does dioxin come from?
I thought I'd start at the top.
Whenever people die, God is the final criminal.
But who are the accomplices?
Dioxin comes when you burn chlorine, and chlorine is
across Du Pont, up with Dow Chemical,
praying with Monsanto, regal as Uniroyal.
Bored with chasing the usual suspects,
I turned to the database,
reading accidents.
Bits of reports: "the site is contaminated,
two have died and two have cancer,
the orchard was sprayed with dioxin for years,
the truck turned over and Times Beach dirt was everywhere...
I need permission to kill the contaminated deer."
Then it caught my eye.
"Tom Furdie kicked the drum and broke it.", the screen read.
An emergency cleanup contract has been issued..."
That's it? I laughed. Tom Furdie kicks a barrel,
and there's another dioxin site? Blame Tom Furdie!
That's God for you. Not just death, but humiliation and death,
like stepping on a banana peel and breaking your neck
or being hit in the face with a cream pie made of concrete.
I wrote the usual report,
about chlorine and plastic and wood preserver and Monsanto.
Better that than to walk through the cancer ward and tell each oxygen mask:
We are all Tom Furdie.
We kicked the barrel and broke it.
Now some of us get the concrete pie.
Copyright 1999 Rich Puchalsky
E-mail: rpuchalsky@worldnet.att.net
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Last modified: Dec 28, 01999