(Thanks to Andre Carothers)

I light a cigarette,
little tobacco tube,
strange squared-off phallus.
Smoke stacks too, only without
smoke, in the distance, rise.
The flats leading to them
should all be mahogany.
Flats-
here a wheat field, there
an oat, the tall stalks
which might gleam,
the steams, the soil
alive with a silent
tick tick tick.
Most citizens left sense it.
How could they not?
The houses of photographs,
fabrics, flesh
busy with signals, the amok
transparent termites
waving cell-like from eyes,
from milk into bottles,
bottles to mouths...
White sound & bravery badges,
banner smiles & too aware faces
with rarely enough money
to get away, convince
a government chlorine burns
more than it cleans.
How angry, how fed up
can patient waiting turn?
How despairing, how atomic
when living in levels
science, coerced, swears
are not harmful, not as much
as thought?
Not as harmful say,
as a bullet that's left
the gun.
One's wound just overreacts.
One's blood should just
stop bleeding.
One's children
should get down from towers,
find beds hidden away,
let tongues, diseased,
quiet on waves.

Sea pleats, field sheets,
nature's grand green,
the design of peace
finds a ship, finds
a rig & a plant-
1,2,3: test
4,5,6: dump
7,8,9: bury.
I put out my cig, & finger
the sweet pistil of a lily
in the passing window of this train.