Fathoms

And the liberals shriek about Donald Trump while the sky rains blackened skeletons And the capitalists surf on collapse like raptors on an updraft And we scurry back and forth between toil and distraction with pythons around our stomachs and mollusks in our mouths And we search achingly for our pilfered hearts inside bottles of pills and TED Talks And the amputated limbs of Ukrainian men and Palestinian children are draped about the fast food restaurants like Christmas tinsel And the billionaires turn the oceans into plastic so they can pay strangers to pretend to love them And men with rusty nail teeth push needles into babies to open up markets in the global south And the talking heads tell us the news but won’t tell us why the flesh is melting from their faces as they die of radiation poisoning And we cackle at parties and act like everything isn’t covered in oil and the bones of birds and fish And we beat back the revolution within ourselves with a chair and a whip for no other reason than because that’s how we were raised And the rotting corpse of the middle eastern woman in the corner is beginning to make you uncomfortable And the floorboards creak as something green and ancient moves below them And the platypus with mirror eyes is gazing at you from the dawn of the universe And your consciousness is consumed with the words “THERE ARE FATHOMS OF PEACE BENEATH THE WARS, AND A VAST WISDOM WINKS FROM BEHIND THE MADNESS” And you come at long last to stillness And you turn and face the world, palms open. Reading by Tim Foley. Thanks for watching! Subscribe to my Substack at caitlinjohnst.one for email updates on all my new stuff.