John Roche

Tear Down the Wall!
 
When will we stop allowing barracudas and speculators to define prosperity?
Adopt a sane index to take our measure
Based on how well we treat each other and the planet
Not limited by borders of any kind.
 
Points for how many clothed, fed, housed, educated in the past month?
Points for how much conserved, how green is my city?
Points for climate not changed, globe not warmed, production not increased
Points for paying everyone more for fewer hours worked.
 
A stocking exchange where the object is to lose, generosity the gain
A place for individuals and nations to contribute money and work hours
Pick up the slack, help anyone in need
Prestige points for giving it away, not trumping others in the gimme game.
 
 
 
John Roche is an associate professor of English at Rochester Institute of Technology and also the current president of the Just Poets organization. His 2011 poetic memoir, Road Ghosts, published by theenk Books, is available from Small Press Distribution. Two full-length poetry collections, Topicalities (2008) and On Conesus (2005), are available from FootHills Publishing. His newest, a chapbook titled The Joe Poems: The Continuing Saga of Joe the Poet, appeared in summer 2012 from Foothills. He also edited the collection Uncensored Songs for Sam Abrams (Spuyten Duyvil, 2008), co-edited Doing Time to Cleanse My Mind (FootHills, 2009) with Patricia Roth Schwartz, and edited Martha Rittenhouse Treichler’s Black Mountain to Crooked Lake: Poems 1948-2010, with a Memoir of Black Mountain College (FootHills 2010).