If poets are damned,
preachers are doubly so.
Can we retract the resentment
for all who find beauty in life?
I find the sputtering engines
of our demise so pretty,
the bale of exhaust so nice.
Even as it strangles the sky,
the sky strangles the Earth.
Humans cower in fear of the future.
Why are poets crammed
into such closed-in conditions?
Do we need our doom to speak pain
that emanates from our smoky hearts?
Fools roam our Earth
with our tacit permission,
and if you don't have the permission of poets,
you don't have permission at all.