By Thomas W. Gilbert and Deborah Glaefke Gilbert
In this realm of destruction,
This hellhole called Earth,
There’s a Darth Vader business
That’s so full of its worth.
It’s consistent; it’s fascist,
And it’s blessed with a vision.
It has great friends in Congress
Who vote each decision
Over those who fight back
And just live by ideals,
But this business is fond
Of the work it conceals.
Monsanto, ‘My Saint,’
Why the smell rings a bell.
It’s a gift from the gods,
Who command works in hell.
But I’ll tell you, I will,
That their vision is poor,
They’ve done way far less deeds,
Why, just look at the score.
There are way far worse things
That this business could plan,
There are way far worse things,
I could tell you, I can.
When Monsanto first made us
Detect with our tongues
All that Saccharin sweetness,
Like smoke in our lungs.
It was new; it was bright,
With the calories less,
And although it was poison,
You now fit in that dress,
That was so tight before,
Why would all mirrors lie?
So why lose weight by pounds,
When no diets comply?
Why not conjure a pill
That dissolves flesh like acid,
That removes flesh and bones
And fat bulging so flaccid?
Their Saccharin is tame:
A mosquito, a flea.
It should kill on the spot,
Like a royal decree.
Population control
Should be measured in billions,
Not just hospital stays
For recovering millions.
But the heck with that sweetener;
Let’s scan PCBs;
They’re in fish, and in soil,
And in birds in the trees.
Poly Chloro Diphenyls
They’ll be here forever,
And you can’t break them down,
I said, “No, not now, never!”
They were first made for motors
And electric condensers,
For insulation packing
And particle dispensers.

Though they worked really well
Helping fuel electricity,
If ingested at all
They screamed hellish toxicity.
For endocrine
Blood, urine, liver diseases,
Cognition in children
With coughs, colds, and sneezes,
And cancer, and rashes,
And lesions, and sores,
It’s now found in the food
We eat, purchased in stores.
But the problem I see
Is in length of transmission;
There’s a story I’ve read,
If I have your permission.
In Indiana some workers
Dumped PCBs into drains
From factories, so thoughtfully,
Relinquishing pains,
So water treatment facilities
Examined their sludge,
Which was poisoned,
But after a wink and a nudge,
Gave the PCB gunk
To some farmers and gardeners
As ‘supreme’ fertilizer
If they signed up as pardoners.
But what a lame waste
Of time — factory to table.
Can’t Monsanto step up to the plate?
They’re damned able,
Get their FDA friends
To declare PCBs
‘Special’ food additives
With some simple decrees.
Like, maybe a preservative,
As it won’t go away,
Or flavor enhancers
Where some folk would then say,
“Why, that there’s some Bar-B-Q,
Fricasseed squirrel.
Hey, what’s that new flavor, Hon,
Makes our kids hurl?”
They could add it to gum,
Soda pop, chocolate candy,
Spread the food wealth around
Making PCBs handy.
I would love to be able
To walk to the mart
Grab some PCB jerky
And crunch it apart.
Now, if I ran Monsanto
It would happen today;
PCBs in all food,
Clap your hands, shout hooray!
It takes research, you know
So, if I ran Monsanto,
I’d have to know everything
To finish this canto.
This mother lode’s deep,
And it’s wide and horrific,
The bountiful landscape
Is teeming terrific.
Polystyrene for picnics,
Your plates and your cups,
That Styrofoam magic
Used by kids and grownups,
It’s apple pie clean,
Just like baseball and Mom,
Bio-degradable it ain’t,
But, hey, let’s all stay calm.
We need foam for our beds,
And our cars and our chairs,
We need foam for the packing
Of all Christmastime wares.
The environment suffers,
But what about us?
Look at plastic containers,
We just have to discuss,
For hospitals, grocery stores,
Suppliers of things.
We have to consider
What Home Depot now brings,
And Wal-Mart and Target and
Big Lots, and Sears,
They rely on dear plastic.
They’ve done it for years.
They just can’t do without it;
It’s a linchpin to sales;
Who cares if it’s poison
To dolphins and whales?
Those fish should know better
Than to eat plastic litter
That floats in the ocean
Like refuse on Twitter.
Now the thing that is missing
From Monsanto’s rare feat
Of creating a styrene
That’s beautifully neat
Is they need to produce it
In browns, blues, and greens,
Make it colorfully friendly
Not all ‘white’ for styrenes.
They think ‘white’ is so pure,
But it’s W.A.S.Pish and honky,
When the landfills we’re filling,
Smell just like a donkey.
The smell and that junk
Must blend in with the Earth;
It’s just got to be ‘green,”
So the ‘greennicks’ find worth
In the fact that the styrene
Will be there for ages,
If it blends with the plants
Then who cares if the stages
Of decomp will last
Over millions of years,
Our great, great………….grand-
Children can deal with those fears.
“What next?” You do ask,
In this fun bedtime story,
“Tell us, please, where it takes us?
Is it cutesy or gory?”
“Perhaps, if you snuggle up,
Warm in your beds,
And envision a world
Without pharmacy meds,

You’ll be able to handle
The next part of this tale.
You’ve been given fair warning;
Now the truth will prevail.”
In a world long ago,
And perhaps far away,
Monsanto helped World War II
Teller to play
With Plutonium triggers
And atomic bomb toys,
Their refinement was needed
For good girls and boys
Their work unleashed decades
Of Cold War forecasters,
Reactor plant mishaps,
Radiation disasters.
The storage of waste
Would be years in the making,
For there’s no place to put it
On Earth; no one’s taking.
Plutonium’s half-life
Is older than God,
But Monsanto’s not worried,
Mutation’s not odd.
But I’ll tell you a secret
I made up in my head,
Monsanto’s gene splicing
Will awaken the dead.
They can splice wheat
With cockroaches’ DNA genes,
So your food will survive
If blown to smitherines.
When atomic war playtime
Turns Earth to a rubble,
All the food will survive,
But we’ll all be in trouble.
“Please no more,” I hear
Plaintively, inside the bed.
“I can’t stand all these nightmares,
Roaming round in my head.”
“Horizontal One, please,
You’re not standing at all,
And the nightmares are real,
You just have to recall,
It is daytime on Earth,
And the sun’s in the sky;
There is peace on this Earth,
And there’s no time to lie.”
Earth’s demons have worshiped
For hundreds of years,
Used death as their altar,
Our lives for their fears.
They shelter their victims
With chemical blinds,
So that no one suspects
Who makes ties and then binds.
But their work takes on methods
That vary with years
And the victims are lost
In time’s grinding of gears.
I remember my town
In the year ’56,
When Dutch Elm Disease raged,
And D.D.T. was the fix.
They sprayed all the trees
Just like washing a car.
Saturation was rich,
Like free drinks at a bar.
But the spray killed the birds,
And the elms went away,
And the D.D.T. clung
To all life’s D.N.A.
As a mutagenic key,
A teratogenic door,
A carcinogenic field,
A subcutaneous store.
But the D.D.T. woke up
From a Van Winkle nap
And began wrecking havoc
Like a no exit trap.
But with laws ending D.D.T.
Spraying of trees,
The birds have come back,
But without all the bees.
The tragedies fostered
By D.D.T. spraying
Were like shipwrecks at sea,
With seas silently preying.
So the monsterless monsters
And victimless victims
Are just God’s holy family
Of systemless systems.
Just maybe Monsanto
Could alter their game
And relinquish the methods,
The outcome, the shame,
And play for the house,
So that all can be free,
And remove all the trials
For you and for me.
Oh, what am I saying?
Who believes in such crap?
Monsanto should spray
D.D.T. on the map,
Purchase planes with ambition
Mitchell bombers and jets,
And B-52 squadrons
Blasting with no regrets.
They can bury the planet
In D.D.T. spray,
Saturate towns and cities
Every night, every day.
What this world needs are toxins
To cure it of ills
There are not enough
Medicines, potions, or pills.
Their rod and their staff
Are the means to this end.
D.D.T. is the spirit
That gets all flesh to bend.
Praise Monsanto for justice,
For their lawyers and courts,
Praise Monsanto for death,
And closed casket post morts.

Dioxin, the name seems
So simple and pure,
It’s a shame that it comes
With no possible cure.
It may be the deadliest
Monsanto has made,
It may be the deadliest
Full time charade.
Low birth weight, for starts,
And delays of the brain,
Motor skills, neuro jolts,
Immune health down the drain.
Hormonal effects,
And a cancer or two,
With a lowered I.Q.,
We should welcome this zoo.
Developmental delays,
Reproductive effects,
Altered sexual changes:
What Dioxin projects.
Dioxin’s like seasoning
That’s dumped in our food
Monsanto’s the cook,
Like Chef Ramsey’s worst crude.
In all of our food
Lives Dioxin like glue
We absorb it, we do,
Every bite that we chew.
We should spit it like bones,
Gristle, fat, or burnt pieces
But the bits are so small,
What Dioxin releases,
We’d have to have fingers
Attached to our tongues,
Microscopically ordered,
Like cilia in lungs,
Then we’d need some wastebaskets
As small as a nannite
For our tongue fingered grippers
That search with a scan light,
And dispose of them quickly,
So we don’t swallow whole,
The Dioxin ingested
That’s a hook on a pole.
But Monsanto’s so clever.
It’s tasteless and plain,
With no odor at all,
This Dioxin’s insane.
But America’s equal rights
Platform is now.
No one gets to get more
Than the next one; no how.
Opportunity has to be
Equal for all,
And Dioxin’s a treat
That we share, big and small.
They could add it to toothpaste
And deodorant too,
And antacids and lemonade
And cold Labatt Blue.
They could put it in Snickers,
And all kinds of cola,
And SweeTarts, and Pop Tarts,
And Nature Valley Granola.
If it’s everywhere, anyway,
Why can’t we just like it?
If we had our own bottles,
We could add it or spike it.
So who cares if Dioxins
Are prolifically near,
We should welcome it all
With a song and a beer.
Agent Orange, defoliant,
A friendly fire bullet,
Monsanto’s the culprit,
How did they ever pull it?
They had friends in high places
Who had hoped to find ore
(In a jungle of trees)
Never mined there before.
So they sprayed it on villages,
Mountains, and trees,
The harvest was people
Who crashed to their knees,
At least five hundred thousand,
The estimates low,
Are in need of attention
That a doctor could show.
But the maiming’s so permanent,
Compounded, and dire,
You’d have thought that your organs
Had been placed in a fire.
Well it happened to them
In a far distant land.
We’re all free, and we know it;
We are safe, understand?
Oh, but wait, it’s Monsanto;
The magician still lives.
They’ve developed a grain
That’s resistant and gives
Us a G.M.O “first,” that repels:
Well, you guessed it,
And it’s ready for here
And you didn’t request it.
A good 80% of all foods
That are processed
Have G.M.O. fillers,
Not even a contest.
This Agent Orange, weed killer,
Had a recent name change.
It is used in the U.S.
As a helpful exchange:
Your health for great crops.
It’s the old bottom line.
But don’t worry, your health
Care’s now a taxable fine.
Petroleum based fertilizer:
True economic importance;
Agra Business knows well
That the move just makes more sense.
If you turn corn to fuel,
Just put fuel onto corn,
Soylent Green is not people,
That’s just how we were born.
If the business of buying
And selling is money,
Pick a number in line,
And pay up ‘til it’s funny.
As Monsanto has fingers
In all of our pies,
George Orwell would just
Pin the tail on these guys.
And as you can see,
There’s no more we can do,
Take a seat on this train,
The conductor’s not you.
Well, the one thing that’s left
Is our house and our home.
We all still have control
Of the spot we all roam.
We can take care of family,
The kids, though it’s hard,
And the car, and the wife,
And the friendly back yard.
And it’s spring so the mower
Comes out of the shed,
With the rake and the trimmer
And the Round Up it’s said
Is the best thing for weeds
That compete with golf greens.
Oh, thank you, Monsanto
For the tools and the means
For protecting my yard
From the crab grass and clover,
Dandelions, chick weed,
And those vines I tripped over.
I don’t care if the birds
And the insects are lame,
Or the ground water’s wrecked.
I refuse to take blame.
I can’t even pronounce
Those damned words on the label;
But my Round-Up-fed veggies
Look great on the table.
And my lawn would make
Tiger and Jack oh so proud;
They could both putt for birdie,
And wave to the crowd.
I think laws should be passed
So that everyone must
Use Round Up for lawns:
It’s weed killers or bust.
I like pretty lawns.
I don’t care about streams,
Or butterflies, honeybees,
Super weeds in your dreams.
Aspartame/Nutrasweet,
It’s better than candy.
It’s like formic acid,
For Buffy and Mandy.
As a great neuro-toxin,
Playing flavor v. money,
It’s a business advantage,
And it’s ever so sunny.
Its uses? Prolific.
Its destiny? Strange.
As to body chemistry?
It will help rearrange.
The more foods are infused
The greater the fees,
And though Docs are confused,
Monsanto will freeze
All inquiries regarding
The health of consumers.
They have friends in high places
Who can turn aside rumors.
And life will go on,
As it has through the ages,
Old Shakespeare was right
We’re all actors on stages.
When we’re born in this world,
We all come ill-prepared
To combat all the crap
That keeps us ensnared.
G.M.O.s are like Oobleck,
So new and so green.
They make our food fresh,
And so ghastly obscene.
Each unnatural concoction
Manufactured in labs
Is a crap-shoot for health,
That is still up for grabs.
Our bodies have spent time
In millions of years,
Evolving with nature
To acquire the gears
That result symbiotically
Nestled in grooves,
A natural course
That involves sacred moves.
I’m not sure that I’m ready
To be a lab rat,
Or a guinea pig model
For a flesh-eating bat.
But then, why not be sporting,
And innovative crazy;
Why can’t we select foods that
Make us sloth lazy.
Or hyper like jackels,
Blood loving like fleas,
Or bipeds like birds,
With strong wings for a breeze.
Let’s jump at our chances.
Either forwards or backwards,
An evolutionary step
That will make us Attack-Nerds.
Monsanto, “My Saint,”
You have outdone yourself.
You should always be praised:
What you’ve placed on life’s shelf.
It’s astounding and memorable,
Fantastic and lewd.
If I had me some power
You can bet you’d be sued:
A Federal Class Action
For high treasonable offenses:
Your world’s made you demonic,
You have no defenses.
I wish you had sense
To see what you have done,
But you’re blind sociopathic
Without conscience: zip, none.

(Actually, for those of you
who have read this,
let’s make a beginning)
© Thomas and Deborah Gilbert

Thomas Gilbert has spent the better part of the last 52 years in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities. Over the last 30 years he has produced a program for teaching full literacy skills to those within this population with Asperger’s, autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, dyslexia, traumatic brain injury, ADD and ADHD.
Thomas’s web site on literacy acquisition is www.literacyforanyone.com It is 100% free to use and share and download. Thomas also dabbles in writing poetry, short stories and novels He has composed simple musical compositions for piano. Thomas also has a deep curiosity about metaphysics and mysticism.
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