Amiable Superegos (Wanting you / in a democratically open jar of society / secrets come at a price) (lines as prompt for fascinating DALL-E renderings)

Wanting you
in a democratically open jar of society
secrets come at a price,

call it a gossip tax
to cut show winners the way amoeba

under a slide in domed cities
multiply strands passed –

footballs from huddles

that explode on and on

as long as they are fed.

Outside, we concentrate on finding

banana peels to slip on,

 

mixing our words up

not to make anyone feel bad

 

or we'll find ourselves daydreaming all over—

a land before inflation

when a loaf of bread was always on sale

and D.C. radioed neighbors for any harebrained scheme—

cluster-mines to defend the oceans

drill the tundra for loans.

                        Then Superman rolled into town to testify

                        against kryptonite. Congress wouldn't listen.

They dragged their feet, failed his call

to clone some spine back in the house,

called him pagan, wondered aloud

if walking were more feasible under the alien gravity

back on Krypton from whence he came.

They wouldn't listen to his story about the end of his world,

no place to call home.

They said, sorry, but flying dudes are old news,

a new economy of terracotta and rutabegas was retaking the wilderness.