after Horace
It’s hard to know what the people think:
for that reason alone I seek seclusion,
in search of a new music
to play to those I hide from.
Many believe in the status quo,
think it the best of all possible worlds,
despite the fact that they hate it.
They would even die to defend it,
even though the system they’d die for
takes more from them than it gives them.
Politicians stand
for the super-rich and yet
affect street cred. Taken in,
the people vote for them. Strange how we spend
what little time we have,
fighting among ourselves.
Fish choke in the shit-filled rivers,
houses in the lowlands flood.
Our rulers couldn’t care:
this is no land to die for.
But, as those rulers know, fear
of incomers turns people’s minds:
priorities become
confused, fear turns to hate.
For many, the fear of climate breakdown,
of looming poverty, ill-health,
pales beside the fear
of change, of other people
different to themselves. It looks
as if we’re heading for extinction.
There’s no room on the space-ships
for all of us. So much
for the cities we were going to build
on Mars. A few perhaps will make it:
the rest of us must struggle
to salvage what we can.
You can run away from it all if you must,
although soon the shadows will catch you up.
You can head for the forests, but the loggers
are never far behind you.
Peace comes to those who stay out of the race,
but one day soon that peace will be broken.
The constellations turn –
Taurus, The Plough, Orion –
indifferent to the names we give them.
Their movements are of little importance to us:
we found out long ago
our history’s ours to make.
.
Dominic Rivron
Picture Nick Victor
.