Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Lost faces

What happened to the
lost faces?
the forgotten faces
those wisps of memory and
slyly probing misty tendrils
as modern times rush
along the road to Damascus
escorted by tanks and
grim-faced infantry.

A hippopotamus ejaculates for
the zoologist's syringe
as another species becomes extinct
did you hear it cry?
There will be no tombstone
just a tattered monograph on
some dusty library shelf
the White Rhino footnote
powdered horn.

Where is Peter the paranoid poet?
does he ever step across
his threshold?
The outside world is ugly
far better viewed from
foetal position head space
Damascus safely on TV
Velvet Underground on the stereo.

Lost faces of legendary days
a canticle to innocence
melody an advertising jingle
while the thousand-eyed beast
watches sitcoms
mapping the human genome
all the better to twist you with
hyperthalmic reaction
blunted cortex
moral disorder.

Forget lost faces and
watch the particle accelerator
tick tock tick tock the nuclear clock
as a madman screams
it's not real, it's not true!
just the seven o’clock Baghdad
market-place news
Himalayas of hate.

Glenn became a PE teacher
Brian a smack freak
some are dead
some may as well be.
Does the smelting plant
still spews acrid black clouds
across the schoolyard?
Perhaps the factories are lost
like those forgotten faces.

Does John still go to brothels?
Did Anna ever find love?
Will she dress in black to lament
the death of past lives?
See the faces are truly lost
and there will be no
late night B grade re-runs as
another Cambodian steps on a mine.

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