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poetry Under Corporate Skies

“Where profit ignites,” writes the late poet Al Young, “lives go out.”

Under Corporate Skies

By Al Young

Dawn, you miserable slow-cooker
of goat meat, why do you park
yourself at my window to snooker

me into imagining the smoky night
will never come again? Sometimes
when you turn up so impeccably

disguised as a new day with wines
of forgetfulness, I respectfully
give in. Life clouds the very trail

life spins: a spidering website.
How long can we put truth in jail?
How long can politicians stab

biology and physics in the heart
and gut the world before there is
no world left? Where profit ignites,

where dividends burn up, lives go out.

Al Young, the Bay Area California poet, born in Mississippi in 1939 died April 17, 2021. He won many honors and awards and served as Poet Laureate for the state of California.  He had a terrific ear for jazz and blues, frequently integrating music into his poetry. A great talent and a warm man has been taken.

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