As if lined Nazca will ever be deciphered
Geoglyphs were man-pressed passages –
a way to work out their god’s failed plan

among desert rocks & cracked ceramics
Cahuachi collapsed after deforestation –
as if a quiet prelude to our imminent ruin

By satellites [& drones] their paced paths
confuse all hypotheses & feed ignorance –
they growl with each dug hard exposure

of bone & cracked container holding only
air – will our remnants also crumble – will
we leave any account of why we declined?

My first body pumps coal blood –
strata – not veins – my black toxin
dug at by my antecedents & now
burning in our ravenous furnaces

My second body sucks stuff from
machined seams too deep to see
& bays for copper & tin heaved by
poorly-paid labour in toiled places

My third body will not take painful
slights of air or sunlight’s touches
& will only feed on what remains –
toiled-thin soil & scarce resources

My fourth body will not know how
we managed to f*ck it up – just so
My second body will be disgraced
by a dragged out record of shame

My third body will not be able to fix
such avarice – a beneficiary of less
& will worry more than I’ll impress
upon my fourth – my nefarious self

I will loosen four circles –
four can yokes/four loops

Four collars – four nooses
or four buoyant garrots as

a fifth still holds them all –
no – I will not save our sea

It took one of my forebears
off Sunderland’s cold shore

whilst my father was pulled
underneath for days & days

in submarines – an unnatural
act – a voluntary Mr Bartley?

Whilst my five rips will never
keep any ocean or turtle free

from tugs of alcohol – instead
I will get drunk again & recycle

Over six thousand
languages
may not adapt
in our short time –
under these
fleet-to-melt days –
to define
our recent misprize

We may never find
a finite word
to headline this
imminent collapse –
of my land –
of your land –
this land’s made
for you and me

Our recourse
won’t be in songcraft
or in bleeding
apologies
to those who look
at this – from then –
and those who left us
clean legacies

On either side
of our personal abyss
we will still tilt
and lever that width
in which we will fit
our half-life guilt
of consumerism
and thrilling greed

We old men of grey
and women in beige
have broken
everything –
without a word
to our kids
without an apology –
we don’t do sorry

There is a languageless rule to reading puddles –
to understanding such first-glance nothingness –
their impossible silences before trod-in signage –

a gauging of place – now – by such offered inches –
ones dredged by tyres – those in unfettered lees –
below busied hedgerows – there held evergreen

against all buffettings – such pleshes can guide
you when compass-less – a small-ish understanding of
nearby prevailing wind helps to fix your position –

known conditions assist in your marking a route
by each reading – taken – it will give you knowledge
not spoken to others from your stared-at puddles –

and flooded plough trenches – and by potholes –
by rain dropping – as storm-clock worked droplets –
and of damage done by such small repetitions

over time – as nature finds less is left natural –
then you will need a new sign language
to name each stranger season of weathering –

whilst you struggle – again – to pass your folklore
without old landscapes to bind your tired stories –
as floodwater-and-thirst rise to alter all readings –

except those re-told by your oldest survivors
of what they saw before – in muddy gatherings –
their earliest evidence of man’s impact on earth –

as Robinson attested – as he circled heel-and-toe
on virgin sand – to find a matching disappointment
in himself at marks he made – huge ramifications