the cloth is rent and
the table is split and theapple trees are blackened and
broken
and the cradle is
tipped and broken in the roofless bedroom
the chapel of tears
is stained with foreheads pressed into their own blood
and bindweed creeps
on the empty roads like a child afraid of the light
the sniper has left
his casings to dry in his graffitied burrow
the daughters and
sons return to cities that no longer see them
and daffodils sneer
in meadows that behave as if nothing has happened
bursting from sleep
to bless the mildest of skies
although bootless feet
stopped at their rims to flower
in greens and blues
and purples that signalled the end of exile
the earth is indifferent
as usual
dissolving coffinless
children far from the cities
where a bureaucrat's
dream of greatness
begins and ends in
foetid louseridden cinemas
where the features
of men are minted with crime and the president
crouches with gangsters in his palatial casino
soldering minks and
pearls to his women who fly through the streets in
darkened limousines
as it was in the beginning
and is now and ever shall be
world without
end
