CHANT OF THE APOCALYPSE

Kill, eat, breed, sleep.
Our time is dear but life is cheap;
All that we sow, prepare to reap;
Mountain high, ocean deep.

The apple is bitten and the rainforest dies;
Cadillac overtakes and the ozone layer fries:
Can’t take the truth so double-think it into lies.

Species cannibalized, poisoned, clubbed and shot;
Another one bites the dust, then another, so what?
Get out of the kitchen if you can’t stand it so hot.

Kill, eat, breed, sleep.
Our time is dear but life is cheap;
All that we sow, prepare to reap;
Mountain high, ocean deep.

We all just want another hit, another thrill,
So foul the seas as gulls dive over that landfill.
Meanwhile, Mother Nature moves in for the kill.

Waste and weapons of mass destruction pile up steep;
Can’t disarm – too far an imaginative leap;
It’s much too late to laugh now, get ready to weep.

Kill, eat, breed, sleep.
Our time is dear but life is cheap;
All that we sow, prepare to reap;
Mountain high, ocean deep.

In heat one last time, the rabid hellhound breaks jail
And with its bitch of money, chases its own tail.
Now shares plunge as the price of profit bleeds us pale.

Life is short, love is sweet but hatred is bitter:
Only the strong survive, you better get fitter.
All you own turns to trash, your cash into litter.

Kill, eat, breed, sleep.
Our time is dear but life is cheap;
All that we sow, prepare to reap;
Mountain high, ocean deep.

Like always, imperialist forces invade
And, for sure, the rich will exploit the poor with trade.
Now suicide-bombers explode out of the shade.

Don’t want no eye for an eye or no tooth for a tooth;
Thousands of years later, still waiting for the truth:
Billions of believers and not a single shred of proof.

Simply won’t read the writing wailing on the wall;
Just go forth and multiply and come one, come all:
We’ll all be refugees soon, here comes that final fall.

Kill, eat, breed, sleep.
Our time is dear but life is cheap;
All that we sow, prepare to reap;
Mountain high, ocean deep.

Here’s capitalism’s reason and rhyme:
The greatest amount of profit
For the least amount of people
In the shortest possible time.

Kill, eat, breed, sleep.
Our time is dear but life is cheap;
All that we sow, prepare to reap;
Mountain high, ocean deep.

Here’s capitalism’s reason and rhyme:
The greatest amount of profit
For the least amount of people
In the shortest possible time.


(2008)


Sometimes you just despair of the world – or should that be, despair for the world.
This seems timely, given the continuing global financial crisis and impending General Election in the UK.

It’s not so much a poem, more a Rant & Roll song – a lyric, at any rate. If anybody out there would like to give it a tune, well, you know how to reach me. I always thought Bob Dylan’s 1965 song, ‘It’s Alright, Ma, I’m Only Bleeding’ was a tremendous piece of polemic – and it may be a distant inspiration for the above.

Hence the picture. For the Dylanologists out there, I can tell you that, in the upper image. the bikini-clad figure in the background is Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylan’s manager at the time. In the lower image, Dylan is watching Dean Martin on TV (more a swayer than a rocker – what a thought: Dylan & Dino!).