Four

1.

Is it too late now:

can I act in good faith?

Am I in any better state

to know my own errors?

Can I change my creed, my faith

or am I ill without cure?

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2.

Now in the twilight

problems unresolved

become irresolvable

Too many hands

have been played

and we no longer

have the deck

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3.

Death does not become us,

we were forged for chase.

And in place of contemplation

we rage, and hustle, and deface.

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4.

Not even miracles can reach us

Or maybe they can?

In which there were revelations

In which we cease pretending the illusion personal agency and opt for biomedical totalitarianism

In which the agglomerating logic of systems and institutions careens into all-out inhumanity and cruelty

In which technocratic idealism reveals its core to be mindless and parasitic

In which it is revealed that empiricism, reason and ethical life are no more than museum pieces.

In which we embrace the fake simulacra and kitsch authenticity of the shallows, acquiescing to its tempests and tides.

In which the contempt of those who style themselves elite breaks free from the gloss of pretended care.

In which the dis-eased and material-ised 500-year empire attempts to battle against the nature of decline.

In which the addled and comfortable begin to encounter the consequences of their convictions.

In which the discontented, jostled, set-aside and extinguished voices describe not prophecy but malady.

The stake

They live in the comfort

of long-practised

habits:

eyes and death

taken and given

with freedom.

Here is where we

come to make our doom.

Locals "pursue happiness"

at our behest, carving

and killing the carcass

of a once life-giving land.

Across the sands

small lives scurry and hide

trying to remain unnoticed

by the hunters in the night.