The Defilement

Why didn't they see it coming?

The signs of rot and corruption were vivid, unmistakable

Who could possibly have been oblivious to the steady slide south?

The lying, the cheating, the betrayal of ancient and noble codes

The monstrous, unslakable thirst for power, not as a means

But as the only, absolute and final end

The grotesquely ostentatious, sweaty, grasping greed

The sale of innocence on the open, stinking market

The abject worship of tools and the rape and murder of craft

Music made by algorithms

Dancers too exhausted and sick and frightened to move

Rule by idiots and devils who scream about fairness and meritocracy

Education that is sterile or a flimsy mask for indoctrination

Doctors waving for aid in an avalanche of poor, afflicted bodies

Or swimming in outrageous luxury in a sunny boutique, treating queens

Homes grown rusty and leaking and so riddled with vermin

That the tenants feel like the scurrying invaders rather than the natives

Or so echoingly hollow and pristine

That they resemble the corpses of pastel giants

Gladiatorial mayhem beamed into the rancid refuges of the unwashed

While libraries become public toilets and cinemas go blind

Why didn't they see it coming?

Consider carefully

The premise of your question may be faulty:

Perhaps they did see it coming

And liked what they saw

There is something morbidly hypnotic about watching

The pale green logic of mold eating the slice

Charting the progress of those stubborn, pioneering spores

From the shore of the crust into the fresh, moist interior

So faint, so careful, so tentatively creeping, at first

As long as our slice is still edible, what do the others matter?

It's a shame what happened to the sourdough, but the baguettes

They are as toothsome and robust and warm

As our most delicious, naughty dreams

Some Wednesday you awaken and discover

That not a crumb can remember life without mold

Some worship the mold, seeking to propitiate it with prayer

Sacrifices are made, festivals in its honor draw poets and artists

Operas chronicle the slow awakening of minds

To the formerly invisible but currently naked and astonishing

Sublimity of this formerly notorious adversary

Now revealed as a saint, a prophet, a heroic redeemer

Let's reboot mold!

What is bread, after all?

Why were we so attached to it?

If we are genuine critical thinkers

Shouldn't we carefully deconstruct canonical narratives

About this so-called staff of life?

I've heard some ugly rumors about yeast

We all know that gluten is a secret scourge

Whereas mold, well, we don't have to do anything

And it shows up, takes charge, and runs the show

It is strong, isn't it? Decisive, certain...authentic!

Not at all bothered by details or implications or second thoughts

What drooling idiot would try to reason with mold?

You might as well negotiate with a tumor

Or try to make a bad actor into a good king

Mold doesn't need our permission to be itself!

Corruption's a kind of perfection, don't you think?