This is the big poem I didn't feel like posting until after the election

WASTE
for CB





Dead buggered boy breath even if not true
a rumour's potent threat, gossip goes round
ties wrists. There is no air beneath the ground
where buried bodies lie. To me and you
word comes as fear. What might they do to us?
Restraint unknown. Broken ungiven word
story of death that may not have occurred.
Tale forged forgotten without noise or fuss,
each sin a chain of air that slowly binds
like wicked brothers tied by deed and blood.
They did the bad thing that they might do good
scent of sweet rot infuses changes minds.
Whispered betrayal poisons with a hiss
constricts our acts in numb paralysis

Libation blood soaks ground. Rare precious dirt
its clot crumbs speak to wrap the world in noise.
Red drip spoil mark stain rich neck's diamond poise.
Mock her – your speaking shares you in the hurt
done to the woman with the severed hand.
Talk to your friend with crystals that you stole
out of her earth. And back then she was whole.
Man came with knife. It was just as he planned.
Deplore their wars. And think your pale skin white
Not innocence, but ash or leprosy
Do it to Julia and not to me.
Death tick we hear in watches of the night
that stump drip. And we lie to get some sleep.
We did not do it. Blood earth mud we weep.


From the sky, falling, screaming. Dying. Fire
that day. And ever since, blood-soaked excuse
almost illegible. No win, all lose
stakes of revenge chips piling ever higher.
Eyes watching, everywhere is on a screen
real turned to game. And he checks in each day
presses a button when he's told to play
no talk or dream of fire that he's seen
He aimed. Fire fell. And so that one man dies
name on a list, it flies small vicious bird
bears fire. Might not be there, we only heard.
A wedding or a village or a child fries.
Fire is our fear and guilt, our fate, our shame.
We live from fire. Fire kills in our shared name.

We walked on cod shoals, but we ate them all.
The rains don't come and then the rice crop fails.
One voice another stilled, the song of whales.
Embankments crumble, profit towers fall
Gold church where money's Holiest of Writ
And dying with no toys the only sin
Tantalus thirst, it rises to our chin.
Undrinkable from oil, gas, soot and shit.
Lungs full we drown although our throat is dry
Black water's dead; it has nor leaves no air
Even the styx is dry. We need no fare
Bright burning bluer than your eye last sky
At dessicating lies we choose to wink
Crucible chars our throats melts gold to drink

What look like dunes are piled white dust of bones
what glints is buttons, fillings from our teeth,
the bullets used to kill us, and beneath
the rotting plastic of our mobile phones.
Elsewhere of course, just white. It looks like snow
for they had nothing. And now lost their lives.
One coughs, eight billion die, noone survives
for long. And through our roads wild flowers grow.
Silence at last. Before, a rushing crowd
running and dying. Trample and fall down
and trampled. Come to rivers, run in, drown,
last song, last poem. Is our screams. Are loud.
Deafen through steel walls the last rich man,
scraping last caviar from his last can.