Five thousand
years:
Ur of the Chaldees
Abraham
horned Moses
and now Starbucks.
Sandstorms,
being
blown to bits by IEDs
on Iraqi roads, or drowned
in New Orleans: it all
comes
to the same
thing in the end.
Who can you blame
how can you defend
your own poverty?
You need money.
You don't have money:
that's it
tough shit.
Five thousand
years:
millions of minds
inching forward,
learning, knowledge,
civilisation,
and here we are
not so far
along the same long weary road
lined with IEDs
many
of our own
social making.
Five thousand
years:
father to son,
wars fought, battles won,
but when
survivors return
they quickly learn
that nothing has changed
nothing has changed
and this, just this
is it.
