Adapted from Philip K. Dick’s “Some Kinds of Life.”
This planet once was black and white —
primordial, sparse and finite;
thus grayscale was as much as we’d
considered that we’d ever need;
until the day our astronauts
surpassed blackholes with rocket shots;
and now we colonize the stars
and bring back treasures in spacecars.
We found purple on Rexeroid
although the locals were destroyed;
we captured green from Orb Kryon,
the natives gave up thereupon;
and Gleco metes out red and green
our strong-arm tactics are routine —
now, Trektone’s where we get our blue —
the aborigines, boo-hoo;
Iderium supplies our brown
from territories we melt down;
and yellow comes from Ambroline —
the UN will not intervene;
and orange we get from Nymphite —
the folks there don’t put up much fight.
You want a planet that is nice —
coercion often is the price;
as freedom isn’t always free,
those rainbows often have a fee;
we send our troops through outer space
to garrison our color base;
we’d like to think we’re doing right
and things aren’t quite so black and white;
the bleeding hearts have their concerns
but luxury nobody spurns;
you can’t expect us to go back
to the epoch of white and black;
but, someday, someone will land here,
stripmine colors and disappear.
Text, narration, editing & production © 2020 C. Kurtz.