Plague and Plagiarism
A Found Poem
to you
from dirty intel
“Back in the year 1990, the people of the
United States of America paid three
Billion dollars for eighteen thousand million
Disposable diapers.
Into these snug, absorbent, well-engineered
Products went one hundred million kilograms of
Plastic, eight hundred million kilograms of wood
Pulp, and approximately five million babies.
The babies weren’t disposable,
But all the rest went straight into the trash stream.
Early designs for “disposable” diapers
Had included degradable inner liners, meant to be
Flushed down the toilet while the outer
Portion was reused. But that method was soon
Abandoned as inconvenient and unpleasant.
Modern parents
Preferred just balling up the whole mess and
Tossing it into the garbage. Tons of
Feces and urine thus bypassed urban sewage
Systems and went instead by
Flyblown truck through city streets to landfills,
Incinerators, and the new,
Experimental recycling plants. Along with them went
Hepatitis A, the Norwalk and Rota
Viruses, and a hundred other air- and water-
Borne threats.
As the price of landfill dumping rose above
$100 a ton, by !990 it was
Costing Americans $350 million a year just to get rid of
Single-use diapers, so for every dollar
Spent by parents on disposables,
Other taxpayers
Contributed more than ten cents in hidden subsidy.
[sic]
But what could be done? To
Busy young families, needing
Two wage earners just to make ends meet,
Convenience was a treasure beyond almost any
Price. It could make the difference between
Choosing to have a child
Or giving up the idea altogether.
Packaging and disposal fees might have let
Old-fashioned diaper services
Compete on even terms
But that, and
Other bullet-biting measures, voters succeeded in
Putting off for another
Generation, for
Another, harder century.
These, after all, were the
Waning years of high-flying TwenCen. And nothing was to good for
Baby.
Anyway, if the
Bill wouldn’t come
Due for another twenty years or so,
All the better. Baby would be a superkid, raised on
Tofu and computers and
Quality time. So
Baby
Could pay for it all.
Elvis roams the open interstates in a big white Cadillac.
It has to be him.
How else to explain what so many
Flywheel-bus and commuter-zep
Riders claim to have seen… that
Plume of dust trailing like
Rocket exhaust behind something too fast and
Glittery to be tracked with the
Naked eye?
Squint and you might glimpse him behind the wheel,
Steering with one wrist
While fiddling the radio dial,
Then reaching for that
Never-ending,
Always frosty can of beer.
“Thank you, honey,”
He tells the blonde next to him as he steps on the
Accelerator.
The roar of V-8 power, the gasoline smell of
Freedom,
The rush of clean wind blowing back his
Hair.
Elvis hoots
And lifts
One arm to
Wave at all the
True Americans
Who still believe in him.
[sic]
Elvis roams
The open interstates in a big
White
Cadillac.
How else to explain the
Traces some have found,
Sparkling like fairy
Dust across the fading
Yellow lines?
A pollen of happier days
The glitter of rhinestones.
“We are born to be killers, of plants if
Nothing else.
And we are killed.
It’s a
Bloody business,
Living off others
So that eventually they will live off you.
Still,
Here and there in the
Food web
One finds spaces
Where there’s room for
Something more
Than just killing or being killed.
“Imagine the island of
Blue
In the middle of a tropical
Storm, its
Eye of peace.
“You must admit the
Hurricane is there. To do otherwise is
Self-deception,
Which
In Nature
Is fatal,
Or worse, hypocritical. Even
Honest, decent, generous
Folk must fight
To survive when the driving wind blows.
“And yet, such folk will also do
Whatever they can,
Whenever they can,
To expand
The blue.
To increase that gentle, centered realm where
Patience prevails
And no law is made
By tooth or claw.
“You are never
Entirely helpless,
Nor ever entirely in it for
Yourself.
You can always do something to expand the blue.”
Found in the novel Earth
by David Brin
published by bantam spectra in 1990