Yielding To The World’s Poison

Finding sweetness in the bitterness

you make peace with your demons tonight

the moon’s shadow sends a cool breeze over Styx

you find sweetness in the river’s bitterness

the trash on the harbor doesn’t bother you

the fist fight on the beach is not out of place

the world has been eating itself for thousands of years

frontal cortexes are entrenched in their reptilian stems

the Right and the Left come looking for a fight

Apartheid down here has a thousand faces

an eye for an eye encoded deep in our blood

and there is no nice way to butcher the meat we eat

these stars in the sky don’t look so innocent

the rich continue to squeeze juice from the majority

Bezos will make bloody sure I get my next Amazon book

in a timely manner, as sure as my boss will be counting

the minutes of my coffee break during peak call volumes

you can’t make lemonade without exploiting a few lemons —

prepare to be squeezed for all you are worth

and if you happen to write for money on the side,

expect to be treated like an afterthought, as an aside,

expect to be shamed for asking for even a small bite of the pie

© Carlo Zeno 2023

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Thanks for reading. This poem was inspired by Paroma Sen’s latest poem and prompt on what it means to let go.

Here is an incredibly moving poem about disease and aging by Claire Kelly:

Also, check this poem out by Rena Aliston: