[Critique Group 2] Leonard's submission for critique

[Tuchyner5 at aol.com]

Hi Fellow Writers, 
As you no doubt will notice, this  poem has rather strong political 
connotations. I hesitate to put it on the  PartyLine.  That is one of my  
questions.  Is this too political to  post? I do however, have confidence that this 
group can deal with it in a purely  literary fashion. Also, if it is worthy 
of being published, does anyone have a  suggestion of a market for it. 
----- 
The Good Old Days 
Born to a world where they were lords, 
their craggy mountains rising high, 
pristine as their azure skies. 
Their valleys lushly verdant, 
their fields of golden amber, 
clear and pure were their waters, 
from seas to roaming rivers. 
Life was thriving everywhere. 
“These are our days,” they said, 
and thought that they would never end. 
They stuffed themselves like fatted sheep, 
consuming everything in haste, 
with wanton disregard for grace, 
by whacking down the woodlands, 
digging away the mountains, 
like hordes of marauding mice, 
polluting land and water, 
wantonly killing wildlife. 
They watched their forests turn to ash, 
their golden fields to swirling dust, 
the streams to slimy sewage, 
their blue skies to smutty smog, 
and cleansing clouds to acid rain. 
They fed the insatiable Kelvin gods 
with heat-absorbing noxious gases. 
Deserts swept across the drying ground, 
and the air became too hot to breathe. 
A tipping point was passed at last. 
People began to lose their fat. 
Resources grew sparse. Some even starved. 
Of what was left, the haves got more. 
The have-not’s prayed for a leader 
who would offer them a return 
to the good-old-days of yore. 
So he came and showed them how 
to exploit a little more, 
by squeezing their earth further, 
and wrote the denial psalms. 
Deny the globe grows hotter. 
Deny your world is transforming. 
Deny it is you at fault. 
Deny that you must change your ways. 
Deny the frailty of life. 
Deny the good-old-days are gone. 
Deny that others matter. 
With denial, came the rule of blame, 
“All our problems are caused by others.” 
Then the people began to chant, 
“Send them back to where they belong. 
Lock them up. Lock them up. Lock her up. 
We must take back our legacy.” 
These were the signs of the other: 
The colors of their skins, 
the faith that they embrace, 
the costumes that they wear, 
the languages they speak, 
the cultures they follow, 
where they’ve come from lately, 
the sex they are or aren’t. 
He preached the rules of acquisition. 
He was rich, so they believed. 
Let the rich become even richer. 
We will all be better off for that. 
The Sun and Moon still rise and set. 
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