i hate them
the truth is out. and they hate me.
them, the barbarians in baseballs hats,
twisting in chairs lined up in artificial order,
and carving their loathing on the tabletops.
do you know why the roman empire fell? I ask.
who cares? a boy giggles.
that is the reason, i say
you are old & fat, they say.
they are young & fat, I don’t say
because i don’t want them to get healthy.
they can stay ugly and stupid so I can despise them.
why envy the awkward root they didn’t have
or their perfect wet dreams pearling
on the television screen?
outside the aluminium rimmed window
a crow strops his beak against a tree trunk
so that it will be sharp to dig
soft white worms from the dark earth.
i yearn for that brutal freedom.
the students resist my will although their heads bow
broken for a second.
the room constricts us all.
I almost say get out.
go back to your bad videos and your hopeless dreams:
be unemployable.
daub graffiti on trains
& put as many needles in your arms as you want.
die if it seems romantic
let there be war between us.
from the late Rae Desmond Jone’s flying islands pocketbook Decline and Fall