Sitting here
trying to ponder the outcome
of good and evil, like a race.
Are they neck and neck?
Is one act of kindness
of the type that makes
cheeks hot from shyness,
why, me? That was nothing!
I wouldn’t miss it at all I swear,
is that a good counterweight
to the circle of power that gazes
from the sharing economy
to social engineering at scale
through deceit really
of stealing hard earned cash
in exchange for feelings
and not of the warm kind?

When there was just you and I,
an ocean or two in between
to wet our folded papers green,
that was easy,
with so much beauty,
to soften my heart to the world.

But throw me among them
migrants by the bus load, the tent,
the walls giant khaki speakers
amplifying my begging,
yet infinitely superior
to the abstract feeling
of dying at sea,
at each other’s throat,
and I might wager
on the side of caution:
on the darker shade of luck.

If expertise counts for something
in the locking of horn and feather
and it is ordained by years
sacrificed in so many levels
by some unfortunate turn of dice,
book after book, late into the night
until the morning rays
announce another beautiful day
for everyone outside the door
bolted on against unwanted piles,
my practice fuelled by hatred
ought to tip my given hand.
Judgment can be rewritten
until we are all smiles.


jam20