Icon of the Sea

A billion crabs disappeared this winter.

Their glacial sanctuary

Was defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes

In his cold steel ship.

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Titus laid siege to the the temple of the arctic,

and burned it down

Without so much as looking.

These will be the first of many.

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Cain answered God “Am i my brothers keeper”

But are we to keep the ocean?

Or does the blood of the Anthropocene,

Cry also, to the heavens?

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Engraved in stone

from Sinai’s peak

a tablet reads

Thou shalt have no icons.

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56 billion dollars disappeared this year

To smelt in steel

And mold in oil’s plastic

An Icon of the Sea

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Who would pay for the sea,

When you could sit 7 levels above it

In a heated pool on a ship

Taller than Babel?

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Remember this Icon,

When it’s shareholders tell you

There’s not enough surplus

to heat your home

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Remember this icon,

When your week of wages

No longer buy you

Food for your children.

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They will tell you confidently,

It is because of the droughts

But cannot answer when you ask

Why there are so many these days.

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They will tell you confidently,

That you should have worked harder

And leave to take their vacation

On one of 26

Icons of the Sea

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