I should apologize
for yet another poem
about death and political economy
but a file called No File
offshore and untouchable
burns endless copies of itself
as a messianic cloud
of media rises above
rioting squares
and the colony called Don't Stop
does not stop
cools a moment
against the bulletproof flanges
of the machine of more of the same
churning out repressible difference
one dead darkened body at a time
Once in Blockadia
went a little like this
excess surveillance
and what could feed on the dead did
though ancestors and ghosts
enlivened us too
Beneath the poetry
everything beyond the page
what went unrecorded
mattered most
and goes on resisting
as it can and as it must
Comrades I will be saying
shall we hide our brave face
on this daily walk with death
or take us simultaneous
as complicit beings wondering
how to stop but carry on differently
despite all we're freighted with –
unearned privilege endless debt
collapsible colonies muttering
doges sputtering fossil lanterns
the metallic insides of the earth and
the proximity of death squads –
and still slink silently
towards better worlds?
What is the nearness
of economies and lobotomies?
Note how finance is still
the cryogenic liquid
of this period evaporating
what lasts and filling the tanks
of sulphurous lies
Meanwhile beneath the glassy surfaces
of our smart phones – deep in pocket
children pull handfuls of dusky coltan
from a muddy trench in the Congo
as in the movie house
whispering of solidarity and mutual aid
some kid – god love him
squeezed between limitless debt
and dwindling job prospects
says it's all good
just before his brains become
some zombie's next meal
Stephen Collis, "I know bankers are people," from Once in Blockadia. Talonbooks, 2016. Copyright © 2016 Stephen Collis. Reproduced with permission from the publisher.