He measures in feet
the width and breadth
of his cell
heel to toe, heel to toe
He parades his yesterdays
like prisoners let out
in the yard
for exercise
Sinking to his knees
it dawns on him
He's Inside
The words echo
"Stand down
Now he can not
even stand up
Town Hall, War Memorial
stupefaction of all deviants like me
who hang colourful nudes at the Craft Fair
and slowly get pissed in the Town Square
Oh if I'd stayed here, hairy farmers
would have given me a hiding
and taken any seed of genius I possess
and trodden it into the fertilized ground
I am glad we made that Exodus
to Electric City
where the boys are strange
and the girls are pretty
well my poem's tear the wind
from the throat of night
& rage towards the dawn
in yours things of beauty are born
from simplicity stripped bare
you write as one who has heavy bones
tonight I Am many things
poet
worker
lover
friend
son
brother
we are crystals in the sunlight
again
The elders were puzzled
The young men amazed
and the children they played and played
The world ended that day
as it has in Hiroshima and Nagosaki
Not with a blinding flash of light
but with a wall of water
that ripped and clawed
its way through the villages
their huts of tin and wood
through the children
their huts of blood and bone
through the old women
generations smiling and playing and dancing
on the beach
now their grin is submerged in death
and sharks and crocodiles and dogs
tear and claw
Their laughter is gone
Their shouts no more
There is only the soft lapping
of blood on the shore
this poem
announces itself
to total strangers
unaware of the dangers
of being misinterpreted
it crosses galaxies
as yet unknown
& hurtles into the flesh of the sea
& there it rests
fish swim through cracks
this curiosity
from where stars rest