#392 - notes for amnesia day

 

26.i.21

392

2.21

notes for amnesia day

 

I forgot what the day is called

why                        

 

great crimes demand a lot of silence

 

gather together now to forget

 

teacher says come in quickly and quietly

hands on…

questions, neatly folded

 

come round like the sun

who’s collecting?

 

there’s the gone of us whom we still are

and everywhere like this

there’s a time and a place

 

like back in the sixties

before DUI blow in this

before the referendum

just one more

and one more for the road

and one more to forget

and now

can’t remember how we got home

but here we are

 

because

sang it in the trenches too

should auld acquaintance be …

 

and empty heartedly

in Zombieland

(isn’t that what it’s…)

 

but in truth

can’t remember

… a little further along?

 

perhaps

 

everyone celebrates starting a gaol

all salute the emptiness

 

it must have been at my first forgetting

so much simpler since

 

nuthin hi-falutin

 

where am I?

who are you?

no one remembers

not on today

but

you can smell something stolen

something big that was pinched gives off a good pong

 

take country

why not?  everyone else did

it was a done thing then

 

won’t remember

if not one empire

then another, worse

 

don’t apologize – it never ends

 

so many journeys and bring us one each

won’t or can’t?

 

this is the place to forget

it’s why

I cannot remember the ancestors

I forget that a year has passed

 

here we are

because we are

and love that old refrain

 

dogs at their bowls can still sit up to bark

 

drunk on possession again

on country

and whose?

 

bread circuses

forget the date

we’re on holiday

the weekend won’t end

not ever

but for evermore

(that was ‘a clear day on the highway’)

 

we could overheat

another cold one now!

 

one more

and another

 

conquer this too

will we can we

?

what if a war never ended

if trauma were whom

?

I want to be able to hear a bomb drop

 

what if

not here not today

mustn’t spoil

 

and one day grow up

truth to tell

 

EVERWHERE IS COUNTRY

(cruel in the days of denial)

 

in empire persisting

and whose is it now?

I try to forget to remember again  

and weary of the heat

what’s the date?

 

they were barefoot

so no one could walk in their shoes

 

we’re too far into the weekend to know

 

beer cool me, will you?  

throw tunes to the dinner dog

of course can’t see hear feel

can’t know

not now

 

truth yet to tell

look for a treaty under the soul

listen for the heart’s voice

 

but I can’t remember here

can you?

no

 

if you’ll just come along a little further

I am you are  

we

consider arriving

here’s the ill wind we

 

every day a day of mourning until

who will

what will

make it right?