Wednesday Night Poetry Club

The smoke curls high, into the fans,

into the mismatched light-shades,

into the flickering bulbs.

 

In the corner, the box of idiots

plays the silent-movie news.

The cops firing real bullets

into the crowds for all we know or care.

 

That little square, high above the conversation,

where league-of-nations-follies parade with tanks and guns.

There is no high-definition here,

we let it pass over our heads,

we have seen this film before.

It ends in redrawn lines on victors’ maps

and different faces in the neighbourhood.

 

And we light our cigarettes,

the last rebellion, to stop our hearts for pleasure

while we wait for our particular bomb:

belt-borne oblivion or atomic armageddon.

Or perhaps sixteen wheels of injustice

will mow down the innocent about their cakes and ale,

unaware of the driver’s destination:

a lust-crazed teenager’s version of paradise.

 

The smoke curls, in whirls, spiralling away

like the last of dreams in the early morning

into the bleeding twilight.

 

At the table, this club of idiots

play the writing poet’s game,

our words firing fake bullets

into the moon for all they know or care.

 

This paper, that magazine, cleaned of dissent

or discussion or discord, paparazzi-ed pap

for the people to muddy the puddles:

the mountebanks’ misdirection

fools all of the people all of the time,

despite what you’ve heard

in bar-room philosophy lectures

from tattooed builders and golfing businessmen.

 

Still we smoke our cigarettes,

we have no fiddles, nor are we Romans

but we watch our conflagration,

debating caesurae and enjambement,

alliteration and dissonance and even rhyme

while the whole world and everyone in it

has lost their reason.