Industrial Demon
My interpretation of a section of a truly inspiring poem "Howl"
"Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and choke in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!"
- Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"
- Industrial Demon -
Oh, you nameless
you ageless
monster of civilization
you rise through the sky
you pierce through the clouds
the result
of a blind sacrifice
we made unto you
we made to your vice
Oh, human nature
tear down the trees
tear down the forests
tear down the living
to build these high walls
to build our great egos
and illusions of powers
over God, over nature
Tempered steel
and cast iron
and aluminum factories
and plastic creations
disposable plates and
disposable nations
consumed and then wasted
like the lives of those
who fall short
of great expectations
The cities are burning
red billowing smoke
to the tops of the towers
into skyscraper windows
the horizon's distorted
as are the minds of
the young and the aging
A generation of electricity
with souls of computers
and hearts made of wires
connectors and voltage
and wattage and amps
engineering mathematics
engineering an empire
engineering an end
Modernized haze
blinding your sons
shipped off to defend
beliefs not their own
shipped back with
open wounds all their own
oil and blood, a partnership
claim this source as your own
to expand beyond boundaries
limitations designed to be crushed
This pleases your masters
this pleases your kings
horned sentient being
of the twenty-first century
The trumpets of war
resound in our heads
the clashing of metal,
and blades tipped with red
triggers marked by
your own personal signature
with cross hairs set on
the homes of the innocent
