Waste

Too often, it seems, we compare the waste of humankind to the litter of the environment; and because we do this, we tend to see the latter more than we see the former.

A spoonful of souls gets thrown in a mire,

And soon, they are seething over a fire;

They struggle and welt,

They bubble and melt,

And then, they are drawn through the length of a wire.

Meanwhile in a room, somewhere in a city,

The rats in the walls outnumber the kitty.

A candle is lit

And cooks up a hit

That spills on a street that doesn’t know pity.

We see it on sidewalks, the waste of mankind,

Heaped up on the storm-drains, the pit and the rind;

We look at the sky

And slowly walk by,

And wrinkle our noses, and feign to be blind.