Rap At The End Of Things Poem by Jenny Kalahar

Pound pound pound pound pound
pound pound
temples are shocked
by the hammer invisible
pounding hammer
another headache
another heartache
that pills won't take away
and I can't breathe the way
I used to

Oxygen
was my friend
now it shies away
I miss it so
I'm turning bluer by the moment
and there's that pounding
pounding sounding in my head

Planted a tree
carry it with me
strapped to my back
looks kind of strange
to go around that way
but at least you can see where I'm at

In a crowd of air-deprived
I may thrive in my forest
or we'll both die
without sunlight.
I'll be buried at its roots
black, brown, withered down
buried at its roots

Pound pound pound pound pound
pound pound
there's a hammer hitting me.
I see you cutting down more green things
with your politics and your guns
and I miss clear water
and I miss the living things
I miss non-captive elephants
and bees, and birds that used to sing

Where will we live when we wreck everything?
The moon and Mars don't want us.
Ghosts of Earth's past are shying away
too afraid of what's here to haunt us.

And there's this thing still sounding.
A beat still pounding.
It sounds like everything ending
melting and dying
and here I sit crying
missing
the way
it was