Cornography
2012
The Mayan people believed they were made of corn.
Through the storms of history they prayed to the gift and the mystery
whispered into the open ears of maize.
Now their descendants buy Kraft instant corn that’s GMO
and Walmart sells the most tortillas in Mexico
and the seeds are all patented by Monsanto
While on this side of the border
high fructose corn syrup rules our religious order
A million acres aching under the weight of corn syrup
a sacrifice to CocaCola
Our food pyramid keeps rolling over
Like dice on a craps table betting our food security
Like crops under the combine of oil and soiled chemistry
We grow bigger with agribusiness
forcing trade agreements that are slave agreements
U.S. corn fired through the weapon of NAFTA
the final solution of those corporate bastards, our masters
in a world full of farmers smashed flat by the power of one
Conquest is done without guns these days
as corn conquers the earth in an industrial haze
In the whorehouse of Free Trade, the first task
is prostituting all that surplus biomass
It’s not just soda pop, check out the meat
USDA’s plan is to shove as much corn as they can
through the guts of the animals that we eat
Shape-shifting them to production units like they never had a heart
served up to us boneless and bloodless as a pop-tart
More fossil fuel machines
but these are able to suffer
Feeding corn to cows, chickens, even salmon
‘cos farm policies champion this crop and no other
They subsidize high fructose corn syrup, but not carrots
so the cheapest calories in the supermarket are also the unhealthiest
Barcoded, irradiated, genetically amalgamated—
CORN—the biotic army of one, replacing all others
Mothers blinded by the plastic shine
infinite horizons of monoculture
A global tide of homogenization
now they’ve liberated food from nature
This corn was re-born of the machine
weaning us off real nutrition to a new cuisine
we’re eating more of a single plant than Life ever dreamed of
The food chain’s tentacles are transcendentical
longer and longer and less comprehensible
many different shapes, but the food’s all identical
Perishable, like instincts traded for antibiotics
We’re sipping petroleum in a culture made neurotic
but it’s time to get real
‘Cos we’re like cows in a feedlot laying in their own shit
and that shit served back to them, bit by bit
We’re like veal
We’re like chickens or pigs squealing for mercy from the cages to the slaughter line
the last page of their miserable corn-stuffed life
You are what you eat.
We stand in lines, conquered by monotony.
We eat what they toss in the trough
numb to the cacophony
My people stumble along
pretending not to hear the pop!pop!pop! of the stun-gun’s song
And it comes down like a hammer
right between the eyes
and we drown, and we act surprised
like disease is a failure of medicine
and not the heart of this heartless system
that grades us all according to cuts
and how well we fit as production units
Spraying poisons and patents
monopolies and cancer
corn is laundering money for Cargill and Con Agra
But wherever you live, the sun falls for free
and life turns itself into food for you, willingly
It’s all a garden we’ve been taught not to see
If we could tear down the walls
and watch our foodsheds disappearing
If we could tear ourselves away
from the bright lights and jingles that we’re hearing
If we could starve the corporations in this fast food nation
that have conquered the landscape and drained all imagination
to trade the logic of nature for the logic of industry —
We’re gonna see how it turns out that convenience is the enemy
We’ve forgotten how to pray to food anymore
but my body is a temple
to the pyramid of corn.
back to list