More Is Not Enough
Epic poem on the futility of materialism.
These cantos on materialism and excess have many voices and a chilling corollary: that things could get worse. The `new paradigm' philosophy of self-aggrandizement has swallowed whole many of the ancient mechanisms of its own demise from lack of respect to inclusive barbarism. The illusion of having everything tempts fate to a certainty if history is any guide to the awful course towards wisdom, haltingly constructed as civilization. Fragility has been put aside and politeness, the beauty of humanity, has been scorned in the worship of everything vulgar. Yet we, the wise, still rush to fill every niche. Winning ultimately might not know any words for its achievements.
Excerpt . . .
ROAD AHEAD
And one of you is a devil.
There shall always be one.
Yet if my freedom means
The possibility to change,
Then I'll walk with a child
On the beach next to the crashing,
Silent sea.
We'll examine
The seaweed and fiddler crabs,
Jellyfish of August, we'll
Watch the sandpipers running,
Peep, peep, peep and follow
Soaring gulls, green amber
Sandbars in the offshore blue.
We'll wade in treasure, piling up
Shells, stones, knots of wood,
Bits of chamfered glass.
We'll Not talk of war or people
Getting in the way, of jealousy.
We'll see how fierce is beauty
And in that beauty, the reward: humility.
And one of you is a devil.
There shall always be one.
Yet if my freedom means
The possibility to change,
Then I'll walk with a child
On the beach next to the crashing,
Silent sea.
We'll examine
The seaweed and fiddler crabs,
Jellyfish of August, we'll
Watch the sandpipers running,
Peep, peep, peep and follow
Soaring gulls, green amber
Sandbars in the offshore blue.
We'll wade in treasure, piling up
Shells, stones, knots of wood,
Bits of chamfered glass.
We'll Not talk of war or people
Getting in the way, of jealousy.
We'll see how fierce is beauty
And in that beauty, the reward: humility.
by Pieter Greff
$18.50