I. The River of Death
O, the sights I saw
as I rowed, as I rowed.
Line by line,
stroke by stroke,
they drone on by.
Each day is circumscribed
by darkness and smoke.
Here they are, lined,
and highly evolved,
and hungry for human bones.
Behind barbarism's
transhuman skin,
lead bleeds from a black heart.
O, the sights and smells,
strolling the noisy bank.
I contemplate the myth of patience.
The future is inside out.
Here, wheezing asthmatic young
suck on their tumoral pipe,
waiting for their turn.
Look both ways.
The dark involatile ground
wasn't meant for the living.
Patience breathes,
by the river of death.
Time. Give me time,
and this traffic island
might combust spontaneously.
II. The Unutterable
Ignition. Automatic hate,
and the grill races to the meat.
You kill me every day.
Again and again
you throw me to the lions.
I am obstacle.
I am the sleeper.
I am disaster.
I am the animal.
I am the corpse that ruptured your bumper.
I am the fly on your windscreen.
You drove a valley through my torso.
You took a tour of my pudenda.
Your hands are clean.
I am unraveled.
Cat's eyes meet human eyes
in the union of man and machine,
a painting of eternal sorrow.
But blood drains quickly down the gutter,
and skin burns fast like rubber,
and your scream is silenced by a pillow.
I am the crash test.
You are the dummy.
I am your sacrifice
burning on the altar of freedom,
a soul on the scales,
balancing safety and liberty.
Never say it,
but there is no pointless death.
No pointless death,
but say it to nobody.
I am finite.
The lightest scratch repeated sufficiently
reduces me to splinters.
III. When the Highways Engineer Repents
Working to expand our horizons,
to bring us home.
Blameless. He takes the grim toll
for which he made allowance.
Blameless, we all
must pick peas from the fire.
No-one will ever
feel guilty enough.
The road is brought to silence at last.
The traffic cones stand authoritative.
They tell you all you need to know,
all you need to do.
But the blood on the tarmac
infects your mind, and
if you are not scared of the truth,
scared to think,
you look for witnesses.
Who was right? Who was wrong?
And yet what stones are left uncovered.
The belisha beacon blinked.
The policeman slept.
Another trip round the roundabout,
then the daylight crept away.
Why does Mother Nature
abandon us to chaos?
Perhaps in lament of decency,
perhaps in pure disgust.
A curtain falls.
It hides the innocent
eyes of the stars,
lest they see what people die for.
But the highways engineer will not repent
one second before the sun explodes,
and nor will Man
make an honest account of his work,
and nor will life on Earth
make sense to itself.
