in every small apocalypse
on every silver screen
in low-res monochrome footage
from street-corner cameras
we see at several angles
the death of Cinna the poet
how his clothes are torn
his glasses crushed
his hair pulled
lips and ears ripped
eyes gouged
genitals despoiled
limbs wrenched apart
by unmercy of the riot
hungry angry wants
both legitimate
and illegitimate
democratically unmet
turned furiously
on the innocent
how the yellow-jackets clamour
and rebel for misplaced cause
how we are gripped in a tidal swamp
of our own incontinent piss
how we elect our own demise
how nothing is as we believed
how the city and the forest burn
how the world and the worm turn
Aidan Semmens