who killed the buffalo?

disillusioned
disenchanted
and i wonder
where it's all
headed

these are not
the same people
i used to know

this isn't the world i
once held

with change
comes progress
with progress
comes lazy old men
lazy old men once
conjured progress
from a fountain pen
and a scrap of paper

they used to tell stories
one could relate to
they told stories about
the symptoms
now there's nothing
the symptoms are
full blown diseases
and the stories don't
bite down on life

the problems are still there
and the pills are said to work fine
but the cures have run away
like the last black rhino

we are all hunted by death
and tainted love
we are all the symptoms of our own disease
and the only light i see is the one
i turn on in the night when i stumble
through the kitchen

we need more disillusioned fairy tales
and heroes who lose the point
in old age
and well built woman
telling us we're doing it wrong
and a cigarette
to cough on
when we're down

someone killed that
last black rhino
like the man who shot the face off of
an elephant for the sport
or the woman who took down a lion
with a courageous rifle and
a camera to prove the end
is really just that close
we almost took out
every buffalo too
and it seems
we haven't gone
far enough

i flick on the light once more
and stumble past the sink,
on my way to shit out what i've done
through the hole in the back and
pretend there are better fairy tales
and people aren't enjoying
themselves too much
killing endangered
animals
on African
plains
purely for the sport

but
don't we kill
one another
purely for the sport
?

don't we load weapons
with anticipation
aiming for the head
so we can feel superior to
the greatest constipation of all
?

i look down into the bowl
and see what i have lost -
they're all there
swirling
in a soup we've made for
ourselves

and the last black
rhino is a memory
glancing off the sides
of a slick toilet
we've named for life

we brought back
the buffalo
to eat it
as a slave
to appetite

and some day
the elephants will
be gone
too

someday
we'll make
a postage stamp
to remember
their extinction
and mail letters to
everyone we know
with snapshots
of us standing over our
great kill