"The Information Poor" - a poem

In this cornfield the combine rears its ugly head
Metal teeth spring into action, snip the stems
Folding in file; wheels crush the cobs dead.

Then the corn spouts into a reservoir
A reservoir mechanically chanting its laissez-faire song
Knowing nothing, but what it wants
And therefore knows not what it does wrong.

We stand by, listening to the combine droning on
And remember the phrase 'Give us our daily bread':

'But when will we get
the bread we deserve
when all is reserved
For crop and for earning?'

Then the gieter rises from its platform
- abstract force tilting out its bread
From its spout, revolving high above the cornfield.
But we cannot reach it, so how can we yield?

While the tourist hovers past in his private helicopter
We are down here, trying to figure out
What will be the weapon
That we will one day wield.

Willem Groenewegen
9 February 1997

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