Monday, 18 March 2013

Live at the Enclave


The broad notes of Brahms braid a new age drone.

Cameras arrive with miner’s lights mining us for numbers

and panning grey bricks with names on walls and walks.

Smiles spread with light rounds of applause.


It’s the same story recorded in immaculate times
before the rise of timetables and the collapse of markets,

the ocean as we knew it, always readying for the tap

of every quake or storm flood to break our bananas and oranges.


Nothing irks us who knew better, not even some other us

a step ahead, almost vegan. But hungry buddies arrive

and want us to come around to seconds on the fowl

as long as the sea and sun will support the ritual.

Even in all the sunlight they worried about who’ll arrive

at the beachheads asking for handouts at every doorstep,

sailing so far from so many language groups

urged to bypass coral closures and volcanic chaos offshore,

leaving the rest ready to divvy up what’s left all over again

before it all ended, as if time swelled as we retreated

with mountains full of mountain peoples waiting to lend a hand.


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