Dispatches From The Dead Zones

So there’s this like dead zone in the Gulf where the mighty Missisip unloads its dark and toxic burden

Its as big as damn Massachusetts and rains down the thick black poison sludge of our modern lifestyle

There’s a dead zone too, inside my head and that’s where I store all the stuff I used to care about

Oh, and there’s also this walled off dead space in our beliefs that we never have to go to anymore

It’s a spreading necrosis of the spirit where now only tough, talk-show propaganda can survive

Robbed of vital nutrients, our ideals now slowly waste away on dried and crusty, literalist scripture

We came upon a hidden void where our dreams had died, trapped like tiny earthquake victims

There, inside the Hot Zone, where only those in protective suits are allowed, lay my memories

There’s this vast, slowly spinning gyre way out there in the Pacific where our plastic trash is floating

It’s like when that diabetic sore on Uncle’s toe didn’t ever heal and so they cut it off at the knee

Still, we keep a dusty, dead shrine to Gramaw since we abandoned her to costly pre-funeral care

The suffering of the poor just bounces off a part of my brain that is no longer able to respond

Too bad all the fish are poisoned and allathe frogs deformed - but that stuff font hurt people, right?

It’s a dead zone, walled off by reactionary anger and insulated with expensive soundbite material

I sequester all that poisonous liberal gas in a tiny, unused area where it cant do me any harm at all

Overexposure to slick ads blighted me like 1 more invasive species we had thoughtlessly introduced

The trout are dying but the carp are thriving and the bullies are allowed to beat up on the nerds

Got red tides blooming from over-fertilizing and it’s killing everything but those stinging jellyfish

There’s a broad area beneath my spreading gut that disappeared from my view way long ago

They found a black and dead spot on my lung that could be related to the smog or the cigarettes

You see that dead zone in the eyes of them stone cold TV killers as well as in our precious children

We hold up in a fortified Family Values Sector, abandoning our Yankee Ingenuity to the outsourcers

To preserve our implanted beliefs we practice a mental scorched earth policy in our retreat to faith

It aint no dead quiet that has replaced those profitless songbirds extinguished by Big Agriculture

Can’t even see lifeless black creeks and toxic tailings from inside coal-fired, air-conditioned comfort

It’s not really a dead zone: For rats, weeds, roaches and wickedly infectious microbes thrive in there

Got no nurturing feelings left after we saved them welfare kids with our abortion clinic gunfire

I’m safely numbed to this world of suffering by the stupefying jingles that have lodged in my brain

I can smile and be nice even as I ignore the vain agony that surrounds me, at point blank range

There’s this blind spot in my awareness that I stare straight at when I cannot bear to see anymore

I’m deaf to that fearful silence, thanks to all my mindless but resource-consuming noisemakers

Fortunately, thru incessant repetition, their big lies atrophy my reason and thus reduce my stress

There’s this dead zone around corporate zombies feasting on cash and shallow but expensive perqs

Their jingles ring flatly through our soon to be laid-off heads as we numbly text our abbreviated woes

And we too, crowd their product releases raising our credit cards with our empty eyes staring blankly

Then we shuffle back home to mindless relaxation until pangs from the DeadZone make us feed again