1984
A poem
1984 was the year I was born
and ever since
the tempo of disaster
has risen like a war galley drum
And I still can't guess
the ramming speed
The parks are absent of insects
and every year the morning birds
recede to white mouth
of street noise
The gap between those who own
and those who make
grows wider every year
Houses cost 12x the median income
and my grand children will never know
the majesty of icecaps
Guns, walls and patrol boats
multiply on the borders with secret camps
While our politicians flash red and blue
like cop cars or ambulances
One side quiet and cruel
the other loud and cruel
The rich gather bolt holes
while the poor gather debt
The elderly are losing their kindness
and the young their enthusiasm
To a parade of screens
selling doom or passive income
The fires grow higher
The forests smaller
The floods faster
The drugs harder
And yet quietly
the concrete can still blossom
In a celtic pattern if you know how to squint
A dandelion's fist rises in defiance
through a crack of neglect.
The slow palms of ivy climb the spraypaint
Old friends are laughing
The homeless are sharing their last cigarette
and someone's providing a couch
to a traveller short on rent.
Everything is fucked
but we can still keep something beautiful
if we try
Out in the desert,
the stars are blazing
in the eyes of a spider
And someone loves me
for the way my chest
rises as I sleep
