Today’s world is a powerhouse of constant need and desire. Seemingly omnipresent advertisements surround us and it becomes increasingly difficult to separate our needs from our wants. I live in California’s capital, Sacramento, which has an alarming homeless population. This poem explores our materialistic obsession with money and our relationships with people around us, especially those less fortunate. This message against extreme consumerism resonates all over the world, not just in California, and it’s a lifestyle that we need to reflect upon and take action against.
Many people identify America as having a consumer culture
We consume ATMs and paychecks and wealth
And cents that don’t make really any sense
We consume plastic and paper and precious metals
Damn, we really must have gone mental
Momma always told us to eat our greens
But I don’t think Mother Earth expected us to consume all of her forests
We consume the sun and moon and stars
And in place of them we worship dollar signs and Hollywood stars
Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle may be the 3 Rs
but Me, Myself, and I is the Holy Trinity being preached nowadays
We consume 3 meals a day plus snacks plus drinks plus that one late-night snack that you thought nobody saw you eat
We consume warmth in our beds, coddled and swaddled by blankets and heaters
We consume water that has been exploited from mountains by the liter
But while we reside cozy inside, just outside some are barely alive
In Sacramento an average of 2600 living on the streets will consume nothing
Our biggest sin of all is that we have become cannibals
Consuming our own kind
Consuming our mind’s eye, our brains have been breakfast and our hearts our dessert
We are nothing but cannibals destroying our own capacity for love and peace
Just to try and get another piece of that new techno gadget or high end clothing
Consumer culture is not our culture
Our true culture derives from the heavens above
Our bones were made to shield our divine intentions
Our muscles were made to pull us closer together
Our hearts were made to love and be loved.
Our true culture is one heavy with milk and honey, fragrant of nectar, and radiant of light
Consumer culture is not our culture
