Topsoil cracking Foundations creaking Interstitial water leaking Gases pluming Sun too hot
Birds forgetting how to fly Flies all set to multiply Central heating turned up high
Fish recumbent on the sands Hail brave campaigning elephants Who rampage through the concrete jungle eviscerating 4WDs with tusks awry trunks outstretched eyes akimbo
Vanguard of a worldwide army of feather scale and bone all stitched up By might is right into a threadbare tapestry of deprivation
Today we spread, we glow, we grow
In rampaging delight we gag on feather, bone and scale We suffocate ourselves
This poem was printed in the 2012 Poetry Trail Anthology from Paekakariki Press. The Poetry Trail, where local estate agents displayed poems alongside properties to sell or let, was a part of Walthamstow's E17 Art Trail.