We must build dikes of courage
to hold back the flood of fear
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I no longer understand this aberrant world –
I am standing – ill – aged and weeping in confusion
Please – for me – explain
without repeated cliches
then I might hear you
and avoid a crossing
On this side of the brook I did not drink the dark rum –
the fresh blood in the water – the slaughterhouse run-off
That upstream slew was held
in the foul storm
by time’s broken trees –
dipped raw dams
But nature’s stoppages are made to give up
and her stick-jammed wall broke under the rising
‘This isn’t forever,’
I shouted to you
as blood clogged the current
and the gully turned red
When all that floats are the clots of dead men
then we will have gorged on the last of the world