[Newspoetry] APB

[Anne Bargar]

 Governments Luv Gly-o-pho-sate

Give me a coca field to defoliate, 
and several million gallons of generic Roundup.
Tell the Colombian government the stuff is safe,
as long as their soldiers wash up after they spray.
Mix it up really strong
And spray it all over everything.
Spray it on coca, and on yucca, plantain, corn,
villages, farmers, and grazing cattle.
Go ahead. Kill everything.
Tell the peasants that they could have pulled up the offending plants
themselves, 
that they'd have been given $1,000 in livestock and food if they had.
But don't tell them to wash after they accidentally get sprayed,
or to wear a respirator 24-7.
And don't tell them that their children shouldn't play in defoliated
fields,
or that their livestock shouldn't graze in contaminated fields for at
least two weeks.
And certainly don't do anything to change the system.
Keep getting paid off by the army and the drug dealers,
shooting peasanmts at random, and generally wreaking havoc.
Tell me a story of why this policy is necessary,
even though I can't eat it, 
and I won't believe it anyway.
Show me how this policy is working, 
and I'll show you children with chemical burns, 
and peasants with unexplained diarrhea, vomiting, and skin rashes.
Show me a $1,000 promise kept, 
and I'll show you the grounds for legitimate suspicion,
and food crops destroyed due to shoddy US policy. 
Tell me that glyophosate is safe,
and I'll show you cows that can fly.
See, glyophosate in a non-selective, systemic killer of any green thing
with a root system.
It doesn't differentiate between what's grown to snort, and what's grown
to eat.  

-Babs