Dinosauria, We

I feel like there is rarely something that I see that makes me sit and think about the magnitude of certain things going on in todays world. The poem “Dinosauria, We” paints the picture of what our world is and will become if these “things” continue to happen. Charles Bukowski brought up many problems within todays society; for example, at one point in the poem he says

“Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty”

There is absolutely no possible way to look at those words and claim them as lies in today’s society. These specific examples illustrate the ways in which we have made “solutions” into growing problems. The more I read this poem the more convinced I am that he is talking about how we as a race cannot live without ruining what we have. That we are the keys to our own destruction. What killed the dinosaurs, won’t kill us. He also addresses the fact that we look for something or someone to blame all our troubles on. When what we find doesn’t fulfill the ache or pain inside us, we search for something artificial that will temporarily relieve us from our problems. Once again showing that our solutions are not really solutions at all.

“The Fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach towards an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder”

The society we live in is constantly evolving and becoming more and more sophisticated -which- is going to eventually bring about the apocalypse. The idea of sophistication will not matter in the end, Bukowski mentions “As the supermarket bag boy hold a college degree” and “And the Banks will burn, Money will be useless” bringing about the question how much value do the things we strive for mean when there is nothing? After reading this, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this happened.

P.S. I really liked this poem.