In glassy towers, the board convenes;
Profits declared – a thunderous sound.
Shareholders nod, eyes fixed and keen,
Rewarding the few with millions crowned.
Golden rewards for suit-and-tie kings,
While outside, a world frays at the seams.
Gaia keels beneath the weight,
Her fossil veins mined deep and wide,
Forests razed at a feverish rate,
Oceans bloated with plastic tides.
But not to worry – the billionaires cheer,
Their net worths soar year after year.
Balance sheets bloom where rain once fell,
Giraffes fade out, but margins rise,
The rich amass gold, tales they tell –
Stock prices climb, unchecked by skies.
Executive bonuses, a flagrant display
While children go hungry, day after day.
Personal fortune – hundreds of billions –
Enough to buy the stars, or bribe the moon,
Yet over half of our teeming millions
Live where poverty sings its bitter tune.
Developed nations, thinly masked,
Hide tents and hunger, hope unasked.
The board’s concern remains their yield,
Don’t fret for Gaza’s scarred-up land –
They profit most from missile fields,
Reaping reward from bloodied sand.
Munitions danced to Wall Street’s tune,
A genocide, dismissed too soon.
And Sudan bleeds behind closed doors,
Its tragedy less fit for news,
Where silent capital exploits more
With rights and people made to lose.
Corporations – no banners, no flags –
Enact new colonialism in executive rags.
The earth groans low, her essence fleeced,
Oil-slicked rivers, smoke-choked skies,
Indigenous voices are policed,
By mining men with iron eyes.
Corporate fiefdoms slice the map,
Their logo marks where forests nap.
The balance sheet cares not for bees,
Or for a child’s uncertain breath;
It calculates the daily fees
And signs the contract upon death.
As species fall, as wildfires rage,
Profits blare from every page.
In press releases soaked in lies,
They promise “green” and “net to zero,”
While somewhere out the office high,
Dust chokes the lungs of every hero.
They coin new futures, rife with gall –
A dying earth, owned by them all.
The boardroom climbs, fevered and blind,
Toward the world’s last, profit-swollen bell.
Greed scripts the death-knell, line by line;
In dividend shadows, we craft our hell.
Gaia mourns as billionaires feast,
Shackled hope, and love deceased.
by Bakchos
