The state’s the bully-boy for the drug cartels
bovaxxing you up on experimental treatments
& a cascade of paragovernmental surveillance apps
just so you can hit the nags and booze
by flashing your phone at the gate
while the billionaires race to space
with the withered trace of a face
from some creaky-arsed cold-war claptrap
when shows were still on weekly in segments
built around untrammelled product placement
& experimental psychosocial whining
& civilisation was just getting into
pumping its newborns with microplastics
& thalidomide & vitamin c & chemical
foodstuffs with no nutritional value
O those heady days before we taught
toddlers to cough pandemic for the LOLS
wreathed in the smoky melancholic air
though now you spruik yourself shrieking freedoms!
like a full-grown loon into the shadow’s mouth
under a gyrating pyramid of hot-desked riot cops
& twitter punditry, the butt-ends & the ray-bans
of social life crunching like bone spirits
beneath the baboon boots, and the swell
of jibing clicks on the Geiger’s chary face
telling a hoary story of glory for the boys
popping horse-dewormer like click-bait
in a Wittgensteinian confirmation abyss
this I guess in different ways is like
an end, not only for us, but for whatever kept
the whole burning like the eucalypt forests
& a billion screaming creatures foaming ash