We all handled utopia
In a test tube,
Held it up to the light,
Shook it in solution
Until it was clear
It was a parasite
Couched in a pretence
Of symbiosis, grappling
With this treachery
In our hands we threw
It back and forth,
No one person wanting
To take responsibility
For it now, but yesterday
We looked down it
Like a telescope,
A kaleidoscope,
Each absorbing
Our own variant
On bliss.
Of mask wearing
Heralding the death
Of faces and all superficial
Judgements becoming
Obscured or deviated,
Perspiring behind disguises.
Of equalities and freedoms
Where all green
Shoots stood the same
Chance of pushing
Themselves up through
Even the driest of soils.
Or where love reigns
Assured and undeliberated
And all unrelated things
Disappear into an abyss
Beyond the bed sheets
And our lover’s arms.
Or where we agreed
About every matter
Until all words
Were rendered worthless
In the vacancy of having
Nothing left to convey.
Or the evaporation of
All differences so
That we awoke
On one eternal Spring
Shine morning conceitedly
Mirror gaping at ourselves.
Or some return to nature,
A Golden Age
Of Man Hunter,
Jane Gatherer,
Wrestling with clichés
And tusked mammoths.
Or when I was five
On a beach, eating crisps
And grit with hands and lips
Covered in sand,
Dressed in a smile
Of buckets and spades.
Cork the test tube,
A museum piece
Perhaps – We hazily
Breathe in
This infertile light,
City dwellers
Dreaming of Elsewhere,
Blessed is our servitude
And our ever readiness
To abandon our glimpses
Of reality and die
For a death less ordinary,
Though we pound
Regardless into another
Unforeseen tomorrow.
