The heat of the day enrages
those without air-conditioned rooms
or the learning to drink water
to continue to breathe
to attempt compassion
I watch my back
which is really impossible.
I don’t know what I’ll do
if I have to fight
the neighbours for water
or our beliefs.
Check out
our elaborate systems
of rubbish collection,
our worship of infrastructure
- such spiritual beasts…
Somewhere far away, bodies
move across bodies
of land in search of water.
I wash my car with water.
It hasn’t rained in weeks.
Let out your hair.
Let up your guard.
Let on your secrets.
Let off your weapons.
In a norwesterly
guns kill people
extending the malicious gesture
all the way down Columbus St.
The roses are also going off.
They’re exploding, showering
petals over the skin of my eyes.
This is the age of certificates.
Medals are too heavy –
they remind us of our extraordinary
capacity for suffering, for struggle.
That short-cut we take
when no-one looks
short-circuits the work.
We’re straight; we are distant.
We grow increasingly
hell-bent. It is evil
it is ludicrous
what we come to accept.
(the emergency
the emergency isn’t
here yet, hold me…)
There doesn’t need
to be a conspiracy
for us all to be in terrible danger.
Certain elements of how
living things come to prosper
are enough to explain
this rapidly expanding
mess.
