John Bennett

Easily Done

With social
media it's
possible to
do the
most amount
of harm
with the
least amount
of effort.

Death Train Meets with an Accident

I keep
glancing
at my
watch.

The death
train is
hours late.

There must
have been
an accident.

Capitalism on a Death Bed
or:
Jesus Was an American

Human life is cheap. Break the body down into its elements and it's worth about a buck. The body itself is roughly 68% water, an irony not lost on the people dropping like flies in those parts of the world where there's not enough water to go around. The brain is 90% water, an even bigger joke. Turn on the automatic sprinklers. Roll on Columbia.

The unquenchable thirst. For fame, for fortune, for power and more than your share, which used to be a moral issue but now it's a practicality. There's no longer enough to go around, of anything, you need more than your share just to keep breathing. It's a process of elimination. May the best man win.

The profit motive. Supply and demand. The people in Burundi demand water, so supply it. Trade it. Three bottles of Crystal Springs for six nubile daughters and ten truckloads of coffee beans. Capitalism on a Death Bed.

Monsanto is a way to escalate the inevitable along with toxic waste, radioactive fallout and greenhouse emissions. There's no way to save the planet and maintain our standard of living, so let them eat cake. Shop, shop, shop no matter how many skyscrapers and bridges they blow to smithereens, those water-starved heathens who speak broken English.

Jesus was an American. Rush Limbaugh said so on his talk show after doing six lines of cocaine. Who are you going to believe? Rush, as American as apple pie, or some health-food nut on an organic lettuce farm who says Jesus was a Jew? Jesus was an American and Bradley Manning is a girl and good God in heaven, what's this world coming to?

I hope by now you get the picture. I hope you're ready to act. Turn on all your gadgets and await further instructions.

 

John Bennett was for many years the driving force behind Vagabond Press which operated on the run from Munich to DC to New Orleans to San Francisco and beyond.  He’s published four novels, two novellas, five short story collections and numerous books of poetry, essays and shards, a poem/story hybrid of his own invention.

He keeps slamming out the words, if anything with more ferocity than ever. As Henry Miller said so eloquently around half a century ago, “You may as well have your say, they’re going to shit on you anyway.”