You are not fit to be the world,
Aimless blue ball, slow, ancient,
Flirting, your face half in darkness.
You glow but aren’t very bright.
Unmarked point on an endless, chaotic map,
You are four billion years of nothing much at all.
You are not fit to be the world.
A problem too little to be noticed,
Too inconsequential to be fixed,
Too dirty even to be an honest mistake.
My wagging finger hangs
In the sky over you Parisians,
Sobbing over your coffees,
Unemployed, angry, and rude.
My disgusted face looms
Over you Africans, your cruel villages,
Your gaudy genocides, your hunger, your disease.
Shame on you spoiled, undeserving Kuwaitis,
You Indians, with your rage and appetite:
Where are your books; don’t you read them?
Shame over Bangkok, over Jakarta,
The ministries and the whorehouses,
The Sultan of Brunei, East Timor,
Shame on Air Force One, flying over bloody soil,
Shame on Berkeley; you’re all so special there,
Really evolved people sipping herbal tea.
Empty addicted Americans, not giving a damn for anyone,
Channel-surfing for a fix, selfish and alone.
Shame on your tossing oceans,
Shame on your shifting plates, your boiling guts,
Shame on your furious blowing wind!