All of the People

Dense clouds of starlings ripple on our skylines.
Wildebeest thunder collectively over the plain.
Fireflies blink. Bamboo-forests blossom at once.
Round the innocent cell, bacteria follow the quorum.
                And all of the people say yeah no hey wait what?
                I eat clean but train dirty. That’s perfection. We rank and yank.

In New York’s Museum of Natural History
a Pliosaur fossil swims through lucent air
and Homo habilis strides, in pairs, from veldt.
The genome seeded, their wax eyes on the future.
                And all of the people say Yeah, no – Hey wait, what?
                I eat clean but train dirty, That’s perfection. Let’s rank and yank.

When I break my arm by falling on the sidewalk
words break too. They switch like a bad sestina.
Around the lone cell, bacteria swarm as a quorum.
Brexit, Breakup, the words morph, heartbreak, breakdown.
                And all of the people say Yeah, no – Hey wait, what?
                The president said When the looting starts the shooting starts.

Erika says that the most successful students
are not the most ‘gifted’ but the most ‘robust’,
their eyes fixed in front, their genome seeding the future.
Wildebeest thunder collectively over the plains.
                And all of the people say Yeah, no – Hey wait, what?
                I said, Don’t look at me I was standing right over there when it happened.

Freud said what man would ‘employ for civilisation’
he must, in some way, ‘withdraw from his sexual life’ –
fireflies blink – thus woman is relegated.
This means, we conclude, Freud did not still desire his wife.
                And all of the people say Yeah, no – He wait, what?
                The company bosses say Yeah, we rank and yank.

What nobody says is your soul goes underground
as you move through your forties – a swerving, a clinamen!
They do not say: your friends are all alcoholics,
that the words mutate: ‘I have to …’ and ‘I must’.
                And all of the people say Yeah, no – Hey wait, what?
                Molly Bloom says And yes I said yes I will yes.

I never felt more totally alone
than slumped by the gate in the airport departure lounge.
Dense clouds of starlings ripple on the skyline.
And more nearly ok too with being so alone.
                And all of the people say Yeah, no – Hey wait, what?
                The ‘renegades’ said There’ll be hardship, but we’ll be free!

Slumped by the gate in the airport departure lounge
the local network thanks me for ‘checking in’ –
And all of the people say Yeah, no – Hey wait, what?
I eat clean but train dirty, that’s perfection, let’s rank and yank
                there may be some hardship, sure, but we’ll be free
                and the technical helpdesk thanks me for ‘reaching out’.