Of all the things distracting you
All the strings instructing you
Every reason rejecting you

All the lights, the bricks you walk
The streets you ride, the subway through
The dogs that bark, the cats that talk

Found by a construction crew
Monkey moved to rafters new
There's no Garden left for you

Interstate a web for trucks
At every turn technicians rule
Cloverleaf the target struck

Silos storing food they grew
Under skies Midwestern blue
Tending missiles, two by two

Strategic limits of abstraction
A theory, game, and Russia too
Mutually assure destruction

Isolate the chain reaction
Don't let these vibrations through
Every evening's news distraction

When the clouds are rising spectral
And the ground is shaking loose
We misread our own intention

Biology, like physics, too
Not permitted by convention
The next war will fight with spears, too

I can't file these vague instructions
Every day life's hard to do
I have only these worn convictions

9/13/24