blame can be apportioned
on the landlord's back
a cladding of inferior quality
wrapped his building's stack

flames quickly engulfed
all the floor levels
tenants were trapped on
such unsafe bevels

what chance did they stand
in getting out of the tower
a cheap Chinese covering  
encasing their bower

deaths were assured
by faulty material
much loved ones lives
seemingly immaterial

construction standards
perished with the smoke
slack council regulations
a legislative choke

By Arcassin Burnham


I don't have to do , what you tell me to do,
About to be grown , don't you have any clue,


Asperations in my DNA , I'm like what you say,
This is my home , don't care what you say anyway,


My family won't put me down , although I love them,
Gotta be on my own, there's no one above them,


Got some mental things going about this crazy world,
Suspicions are needed , even in my girl.

They inject it into your brain
Directly through the skin and through the skull
Don’t even ask about the pain
Anyway, it seeps into the cortex
Lighting up the neurons with memories
What memories?
First piggy back, first pulled tooth, first death wish
Soft stuff springing into sparks
And then oh, the flames
Don’t even ask about the pain
The straining emotion remains, of course
And new connections are made
Stemming phylum connections between
One ethereal feeling to the overwhelming onslaught of
You know, things
Then the frontal lobe takes a break
It sips that stuff and stops
And thinks- we all know where that leads
Detachment and dissociation start dancing
They tango to the dull beat of your heart
It thump thumps and there’s nothing else really
Your brain wakes up every few minutes
The background music playing
And it makes you **** in this weird cold air
Stuff happens, things stay alive
And the injection well
It’s faded the minute it was dispensed
You were never more or less awake
But it’s all still moving slow-quick
Slow down, you say quickly
It speeds up
You’re feeling everything that’s ever been felt
What a rush what an end

Now it ends.
You slouch
You see there isn’t a needle or a pen
Nor a blade of any kind
And the thumps are replaced by heavy thuds
The sound rattling in your ear canal
You inject it into your brain again
Nothing
You get up to brush your teeth and wash your face.

It was of sticks and stones,
They shaped the words
That leave my breathless lips
And catch on the ends of your ears.

It was of moths and flames,
They guided my hopeful eyes
To the cracked sidewalks
That I would soon know as home.

It was of strings and tan paper,
They wrapped my heart
Like a present you didn't want to receive
But you accepted with a slim smile anyway.

It was of mist and fog,
That filled my clouded lungs
And drowned out my words
So they could never hang on the lobes of your ears.

But I like a mountain in the wind
Let you breeze past me,
The scent of warm blankets and hot rod cars
Passed with you

But your breeze whispered to me
At once the mist and fog cleared
And the moths receded from the flames
And the stones felt like mere pebbles

They danced,
and touched the sky.
No good, no bad;
nothing remained.
All became part
of their glowing trail.
They were violent seas:
fiery red, flaming orange.
They left everything
in ashes. As ashes.
Then they touched the sky,
and they danced.