#1791 - the poison ships

 

1791

5.329

25.xi.24

the poison ships

poem for rising tide

mourning the five million humans worldwide who die from air pollution each year

 

 

the poison ships

carry off tomorrow

 

when every day the sea gives life

it’s every breath of the sky is

 

but the poison ships

creep in, creep out

 

they fight the tide of truth

by habit

 

there’s a train of dark cargo never ends

it creeps

to bring the poison to the harbour

to load it for the whole wide world

 

the poison ships carry off

red as rust they creep

 

that’s how they spread the poison

how ends are made to meet today

it’s money

it’s one great machine

 

are you a part of that?

 

there’s a shovel that’s powered by poison

to dig up more of the same

 

down deep into the entrail earth

where yesterday was buried

 

old bones are harmless if they’re left

but who can afford to leave them

and what’s a dog to do

when it’s gold to burn?

 

that’s habit

how the whole world chokes?

 

where’s a haruspex to read?

those old bones say

‘no future here’

 

this is the dinosaur swamp

of not thinking

we’re selling it to the world

 

the poison ships

carry off tomorrow

they creep across the map

like snails

 

are you a part of that?

 

it’s all the past for burning

it’s all we could have been

 

they’re shipping it out

all over the world

it’s so that there’ll be no tomorrow

 

that’s what the poison ships are for

 

they fill the sky

with we can’t breathe

 

they raise the seas to sail

 

no sails

but puff the oil slick

death to every creature under

 

have you  seen the poison ships?

they are fleet, a whole horizon

 

what can we, any – each of us – do?

 

well, here’s a flotilla of voices against

voiced raised to tell this one truth

painful, obvious –

 

that these are the poison ships

it’s every breathing thing they threaten

 

some lame little danger

a government calls

to set its dogs upon

as if they cared

for all our health

 

when they care for the poison ships instead

for the comfort of their coin

 

the poison ships

carry off tomorrow

 

when every day the sea gives life

it’s every breath of the sky is

 

now

imagine the ships turned back to sea

or sunk just where they are

for a reef

for fish

for the turning tide

 

imagine it all ends now –

the poison and the profit

the failure to see where we are

 

then the mending

then the air can clear

 

we have to imagine it first

 

then which way should we paddle now?

we’ll have to lead ourselves to know

that every breath of the sky’s our best

 

we must fix an eye on hope