Monday 27 January 2020

Fire Season - Heat

Air scorching throat and lips
with every attempt at breath
Suffocation of mind and spirit
as black and white-grey ashen particles
stick to skin and cloths and eyelashes

Lord, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!

Hell’s strange silent sound of heat
presses in on senses,
ears melting...
Will heat enter through my ears
to melt what is left inside my head?

Lord, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!

Illusions of Safety in halls, on boats, at show grounds  
where volunteers make sandwiches and eternal pots of tea.
Countless plastic water bottles 
magnifying the warming rhetoric 
heating unfolding anger and anguish

Lord, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!

Air-con, conning psyches to believe in respite 
from reality, solidarity, familiarity 
with the burning of broken pieces of heart, 
the art of which becomes 
incantations of sorrowing lamentations 
for what is lost to heat

Lord, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!

O God - if you are in Heaven
Come here to hell to ease our burns.
...
Have mercy.


(C) A A Koh-Butler, 2020

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