Poems
by Gary
Beck
City Trees
We’re different
from rural trees
who die from drought,
fire, storm, earthquake,
natural causes.
while our roots
are daily assaulted
by expanding concrete
smothering growth,
condemning us to death
by suffocation.
Economic Abuse
A plague has swept my land.
It originated here,
then spread to the world
facilitated
by the lords of profit
always eager for control
of the people
who divert them
from extravagant excess.
The creatures of privilege
delight in the applications
of tablets, smart phones, laptops,
endless video games,
the best preoccupation,
constant social media use
that distracts all of us
from the accumulation of wealth
by the exploitive greedy
abandoning us to poverty
while they revel on mega-yachts.
