MONSANTO
This piece was the 2nd prize winner in the Creative Category of the 1st Terry Writing Challenge.
Mon: Mon means “my” in French, used when the article is masculine. Mon, ma, mes. Mon serves as an incorrect pronunciation of “man,” the substandard expression used by a conquered people. Said the Scot to the Rastafarian, “What a piece of work is mon?” It is also an abbreviation for Monday, the day after Sunday, or money, the reward after work. It can be a variant of mono, which means one. A Mon is a member of the Buddhist people living in Myanmar and adjacent parts of Thailand; Mon represents an identity, a people, and the language they speak, Mon-Khmer. Mon stands as the last three letters of the word common.
Mons: A protuberance of the human body, a slight elevation above the general level of the surface. A mound of fatty tissue covering the pubic area in women. Mons hustles and bustles, gives itself as name to a city in southwest Belgium, population 91,868.
Santo: Santo means saint in Italian and Spanish and Portuguese. Santo lends its name to a city in Texas, zip code 76472. The capital of the Dominican Republic: Santo Domingo. Ron Santo played baseball (batting average 162,) and El Santo started out his life as Rodolfo, but changed after becoming a professional wrestler and a movie star. Rodolfo is dead, but El Santo lives on in memory. According to Drako Pavolav santo means the following:
“A word describing when your hair /face is covered in shit or sumthing dirtyy like shit
defines from a boy named santo hoo has shit in his hair
Ryan G. talking to Dany Atkinson – oh dany santo on my head baby wet and steamy that how i like it
‘dude that mothas got santo all up in his doo’”
Anto: Anto means nothing much at all. Perhaps the pet name for Antonio, a boy a girl once loved. An inverted exclamation of surprise at seeing an insect: “Ant-O!”
Mon santo. A(n) defeated nation/day of the week/evil/one/identity/language city/uncouth appearance.
Mons anto. A(n) protuberance/elevation/femininity/city – nothing/loved boy/a surprise!
Mon santo is a hybrid. My saint. My retired baseball player, my dead Mexican wrestler/actor. In ita-span-in-guese. In garbled American.
Monsanto is a name, and it names, has named itself. Monsanto pledges, it is a pledge and an ideal and it pledges ideals. Monsanto is a transnational place, Monsanto co-operates, it is a co-operation, corporation. Monsanto is Capital, capital C, is Monsanto a capital, a heartland? Monsanto = progress = creation = ownership, Monsanto thinks and moves with a head and a body, is a brand and a personality. A cross-section of the brain of Monsanto shows men and women in suits seated on leather chairs.
Monsanto says: “Monsanto is a leading provider of agricultural products and solutions. We use unparalleled innovation in plant biotechnology, genomics and breeding to improve productivity and to reduce the costs of farming. We produce leading seed brands, including DEKALB and Asgrow, and we develop biotechnology traits that integrate insect control and weed control into the seed itself. We make Roundup, the world’s best-selling herbicide, and other herbicides, which can be combined with our seeds and traits to offer farmers integrated solutions. Through our Holden’s/Corn States business, we also provide other seed companies with genetic material and biotechnology traits for their seed brands. We manage our business in two segments: Seeds and Genomics, and Agricultural Productivity.”
Monsanto is the name of a company that provides genetically manipulated seeds to grow plants, and chemicals to kill plants. Monsanto provides genetically manipulated seeds to grow plants, and chemicals to kill plants. Monsanto = solutions.
Monsanto fought in the Vietnam War. Monsanto is Agent Orange. My Saint.
Whose ecocide was this, this homicide? For this travesty, we accuse man, not mon. Sprayed on any day of the week, but why? Greed? Killing a land, an identity, a people dying with stories still lodged in their throats. Because they were common, expendable?
People collapsed on the ground like humps of earth, mere protuberances, slight elevations. Babies so poisoned and twisted and weak they slipped through their mothers’ thighs, too tired, too tired. Villages die uncomprehending, victims of man’s machinations, of neutral executives seated in far away lands.
Oh God! Oh God! Send a savior! Say the soldiers in ‘nam. They are flying home, dreaming of vacations in warm places, because hunched figures convulsing over toilet bowls are too much, too much. These rash-faced men, give them each a name, somebody loved them once and loves them still, so give them significance. Give them dignity, after all the shit and the nights in the mud, after surviving a chemical storm, colourless showers from orange-striped barrels – 7.1 million litres worth cloaking the broad sky.
Monsanto leaves a legacy of shame and lives a life of barefaced ambition.
One side-effect of Agent Orange: Neurotoxicity, including neuropsychiatric dysfunction, deficits in motor function, and peripheral neuropathy. Progressive insanity?
Pioneer, where has your ambition taken you? Or was it just hope? Pioneer, trying to sow, to change Canada, like enticing whales with a bent pin. Monsanto said to the pioneer, “You’re looking at this the wrong way boy, don’t change the earth, change the nature of the seed itself.”
i) Let me out!
A point on a sheet of green paper. War veterans back home, dreaming nightmares in their wheelchairs. Bloody fetal carcasses, miscarriages. Liquid flowing from tiger barrels. The names inside a seed, secreted by dirt, exposed by electron microscopes. All pressed by dreams of nothing.
ii) He asserted/into the furrows, I/am not random.
I would like to believe in control and in destiny. Before I die, I would like to know I stood for something, meaning I stood against something. Opposition means I have changed something, and in changing something, I have defined myself. I want to know myself like I know the land.
iii) everything is getting in.
If the land doesn’t drive you nuts then Monsanto will.
iv) It was ordered absence.
“We had something going, before people came.” I heard the forest whispering the other day.
v) For many years/he fished for a great vision.
Oh, we had our share of struggles. The pioneers came here on boats made of promises and persecution. Conquered men and women who did not want to be conquered. We didn’t know how cold it would be, how hard it was digging through the frost to bury the blue babes; see those nine white crosses? None of our seeds would grow. Back then it was man against land, and the land was something strange. Now… now the fight is different.
vi) But obstinate he/stated, The land is solid
We know our land now. Now we have communism and democracy, nationalism and a global community. People still labor, but towards different ends.
vii) the tension/between subject and object
Monsanto is a hybrid. It means My Saint. In ita-span-in-guese. In garbled American.
Monsanto says to the pioneer, “We’re both the same, you and I, hybrids. Transplants, never quite knowing what we’re doing when we’re here, just looking for something to fight for, something to call our own. They’re taking over, but we won’t let them, will we? I’ll help you; we fought the Gooks, you know.”
