Shine

Smoke and sky spiders fill the air
as missiles smash into Gaza
and powerful men drive needles
into the flesh of young girls.

Turns out Chomsky partied with Epstein,
so now I have to take up vaping
and go fill a shoebox with polaroid photos
of dead birds in car parks.
I’ll pretend I’m doing it ironically
so no one mocks my prayer cards
for a dying world.

Sometimes the Buddha looks like the Buddha.
Sometimes he looks like bleached coral reefs,
or rapefinger plutocrats with pointy teeth.
Sometimes he looks like a woman in her early fifties
sobbing snot-nosed and red-faced
at the cruelty of it all
in pajama bottoms
and a Pink Floyd t-shirt.

The war drums are getting louder,
and the bank boys are getting horny again,
and the flesh of the innocent is so soft
and so easy to digest,
and the darkness hides so much,
and the light makes so little difference.

But we shine it anyway.

We shine it anyway.

Reading by Caitlin Johnstone:

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/shine