I have to play
To play for you so you will sail
through
And stay the course, I cannot force a
thought
Shuttered owl roosts, though in this
great midday
There's no sane way that we can stop to
nap.
I can talk of bright coloured plastic
wheels
Rolling under peels of bird-song, bells
In tufted fields, talk of family
Not modern dyads, but ancient kin
Upon the savannah in tanned animal
skins
A school of small dwellings and
cousins.
Where there are gluts of brick and cash
and glass
Apes butt cheek by jowl, battery fowl
buses
Rock clad paths and myths, back-lit
myths of now
Blaze a beacon for flocks of sheep who
seek this stock
Skip lunch, the sunk forgot, the beacon
stoked.
A culture of cricket whites
From summer arm-chairs we tune such
fare as the smack
Of leather on willow, of ordinance on
entropy
Pillow talk the score under ordinary
unbreached roofs
Unbroken triangles that spread forces.
Our silicon Oracles turn water to wine
Transubstaniate raw data to flesh
Transubstaniate raw data to flesh
Out-calculate the entirety of
Humanity arraigned with abacus.
Humanity arraigned with abacus.
Amidst the glut of brick and wash of cash
The rock clad paths aren't as was told,
faced with gold
But under-girded with glass and lasers,
obliterating space
As stirrups, galleons and
ball-bearings did
Before, but not for those who sunk
offshore
“If one should bring me this report
That thou hadst touch'd the land to-day”
Not for those in sand dusted clothes
the hand has closed
The door. The door will not close
These chalk walled pirate isles. Of
Rhodes, Drake, Clive
This sanguine, stoic form of speech may
sup
On schadenfreude or Siddartha
Court roots or court disaster.
Long since Subitai and Sulyeman
Since bodies piled up in Pesht and
Harwich starved
Amid heaps of rotting herring.
Long since Ecumenical blessing
apportioned space
Chain linked the ecumene across oceans
Since the roof truss placed spread force.
Truth, right, power. Kingston, Bristol,
Accra
Unbroken triangles, of course.
Bastard princes engorged call feathered
beds
Aged reds and credit
Over thirty faces and they're just
chimps
To a chimp. The 0.1 percent
Difference. They lie like us, war and
get high
But never pressed papyrus
Smaller frontal lobes and fusiform
gyrus
But we scale. Horse back, iron horse,
tarmac, cable
Wood, Charcoal, Coal, Oil
Till we have tasted flight
And eyes skyward wade torrents of
plight
In opulence, afford to ignore
uninsurable
Sunk dinghies, the latrine stink cess
of promises
And declarations, obligations. The
ghosts
Of Roosevelt, E. and deflation
Haunt a family in tanned animal skins
on the savannah
Immiserate, immiserate.
Hiding under a canvas wagon cover
A one season teenage Temujin whispered
promises
To Bortei, but a bud, too young for
make-up or disenchantment
A heart that launched a million hooves
That day, what did she hear, what did
she say?
Leaves fall in the lake
To rot, to feed crab, to feed fish, to
compost
For dark roots, the rot of social
contracts, the compacts
With gods, with falling leaves, with
post-war settlements
Unsettled shettles, flee shuttled in
sealed buses
Flee blundering humpty-dumpty and uncle
These wars never happened, under the
law.
The lessons of Dachau, of Auschwitz,
learned lessons
Of aftermath, of outsourcing, lessons
of digital distribution
Lessons of chaos, the schooled
rapacious, debt fuelled
Scions of Cortez, the hounds must be
fed
Chow down, Chow down
Snout brown in full bullion bowls, chow
down
On pensions, on freedoms, on relations
chow down
While others promise, chow down
There is enough for everyone, chow down
We sent no invites.
They will all drown
The family, savannah pinned in tanned
hide
The self-selecting Darwinian footed
thousands
The kerosene lofted connections, the
cargo containers
The obliteration of space
And in time
Sit like Canute, and cry, cry for your
Ayrian myths
Cry as waves of reality rend your
misapprehension
Of culture, of humanity, cry
That the iron horse crosses your land,
that the beacons
That have branded your mind have
branded the savannah
Cry like Canute and sink.
The Assyrians have come, come in iron
chariots
In God despairing iron chariots,
Assyrians with wings
And chemical horses, shift beads on
your abacus
Go to the beach and builds walls on the
sand, build walls
On the shore, on the cliffs, build your
walls against water
Against the lake, against the weight of
numbers.
Shift your abacus, or come with clubs
and dialects
Against the tide of Genghis and Cortez
Against the tide of these pirate isles
From whence warriors sailed
Against the weight of Clive, Rhodes and
Drake
Come with your dialects and clubs.
There will be blood
You will drown in that blood.
A family, on the savannah, animal skin
minded
May cry
Cry like Canute
There will be tears
You will drown in those tears.
