Vonnegut’s Babies
Man, I wasn’t there when they punched the big, red button
I wasn’t there when they counted down
I wasn’t there when ruptured the sea and sunk the first atoll
I didn’t tickle the dragon’s tail with the Demon Core
I didn’t burn 2 cities halfway ‘round the globe
And I wasn’t in Los Alamos
Before they lit the fuel I hope someone paused and said into the stillness, “We cannot be asked to not expand ourselves, so we’ll choose the lesser of evils. Someone must because someone will. But everything we do takes from another’s life, so, goddammit, what we do had better be worthwhile. It’s a blood trust, taken and not freely given. A moment of silence for the price paid and not by us!”
Yeah, now that red phone’s ringing
All of creation is on the line, sayin we got a crisis
Agent Smith was right to call us a virus
You think we’re better than this?
For a species that’s conscious, holistically we’re mindless
collectively spineless, our house divided
Does anyone really think we can keep on this way?
Man, I wasn’t there when they punched the big, red button
I wasn’t there when they counted down
I wasn’t there when they punctured space and stuck in the first monkey
I didn’t have a headset or a computer
and I wasn’t in Houston
Before they lit the fuel I hope someone paused and said into the stillness, “We cannot be asked to not expand ourselves, so we’ll choose the lesser of evils to reach the stars. Someone must because someone will. But everything we do takes from another’s life, so, goddammit, what we do had better be worthwhile. It’s a blood trust, taken and not freely given. A moment of silence for the price paid and not by us!”
That chimpanzee, he’s my brother
And the coelecanth, my great-aunt twice removed
Yeah, we’re all big leafy green, growin and stretchin higher
Our faces upturned, drinking gold fire
Just doin what plants do, we can’t help it
So busy looking up we forget our toes are curled in the dirt
Slurping up the dark blood of the earth
Sapping from the bodies of our ancestors, our mothers and our brothers
Know where you come from: consuming your roots
Yeah, we all got black veins
but here we are, standing on the shoulders of everyone who came before
sometimes stomping on their faces to make sure they stay below
a carbon footprint, sooty black and not just from the coal
To live the American Dream you gotta be a bloody, body-building cannibal:
More for me and mine
That’s exactly why Kurt said, “Babies, you’ve got to be kind.”
If it were up to me success of economy wouldn’t be based on increasing GDP
and there wouldn’t be that cell phone ad saying I have the right to expand myself
to what gain? we can all create content, so there is a lot of speaking and precious little listening
Websites masturbate and create more clickbait.
Remember when we thought the web would free us? If you really believe it, ask some spiders
Or who did you think is crawling the fibers?
Instead it’s a forest of distraction
Our tools are powerful, but to stay on task we have to hamstring them
I disabled Windows 10’s tiles not only to avoid the sidetrack-ment
But also because to fill those cycling rectangles, a host of electrons have to take a lap
even though my electricity is green it doesn’t mean I should keep eating it
there is such a thing as carrying capacity: all the space each takes
The race for more is on a declining line, and it’s gonna get to the bottom
This is both the Commons and the Tragedy
your world is gonna be empty if you fill it with “me”
and our world is gonna be empty if we fill it with “me”s
Man, I wasn’t there, when they— but that doesn’t absolve me
And am I really any different? Wouldn’t I be scared? Excited? Desire to be entertained?
Wouldn’t I also try to reach my goals like the tigermen of yore?
I’m there every time I choose between the leaves and the beef
I see the oil and the water behind the greens and the meat
I’m there every time I punch that big, ON button
but at every opportunity I pause and say into the stillness, “I can be asked to not expand myself. Inaction isn’t as sexy as action, but it’s often more right. Someday, maybe no one will because no one must.
A moment of silence for the price paid and not by me.