february 2022

                         (i)

…come, put aside this bleary chorus

and stare ashamed

as vanity bleeds into the walls

these perfect, liquid egos

that suture the good earth

for who now launders the truth

wins the future

for they have learnt now

how to cut and sow the ground

with lizard’s teeth

how to rule the geospheres

and fill their great saphenous veins with gold

these dissident egos, these stylish egos

laughing as they open the good earth

to show how it is alive

with more than just blood

its subterfuge and gossip

its foetuses and rags

these liquid teeth

that rise and rise

tightening on the truth…

                                        (ii)

…I have never before spoken of you 

my inaccessible other

my oh so-epic sibling 

this colossal blood

this planet of eight billion minds 

enraged by its own solitude

by death’s vast undertow

trying to live for just one more day

and yet I have already seen you out there 

intractable, symbolic, damned

in every other face except my own 

for I am as inaccessible to all

as all are to me 

a daughter to everything, a son to nothing

this mind enraged by confinement 

by this unbreakable solitude

this planet that asks only one thing

to live for just one more day

and yet I can see you still

my sister, my brother, my colossal lover…

                                 (iii)

…is it not enough now 

these voracious ethics

these viagra victories

of pudding-faced men

whose intimate moments are spent

ejaculating into the eyes of those they have murdered

men who will never have to kiss

their own child’s severed face

so, is it now not time to say

enough of these ingrained wars

these vast, grim kleptocracies 

whose refugees are left to chase the clouds

from one land to the next 

enough of this mutually assured morality

this burnt offering of a world 

that fatefully looked the other way

as the pudding-faced man

swallowed his pills

and waved his erect sovereignty

high over the earth…

 (28.2.22 in memoriam Ukraine)